Been looking forward to the Metal Gear Online beta? 

Yes?

Too bad.

Konami announced that the US public beta will be delayed due to service problems caused by "extraordinary levels of traffic from all around the globe."

Technically good news for Konami as an indicator of Metal Gear's popularity, but you'd think that they would've anticipated and prepared for this event a little better.  Am I the only one having flashbacks of Xbox LIVE and its holiday failures?

The beta became available for download on April 16 and was scheduled to open today; at least the end date has been pushed back from May 6 to May 11. In Japan, it was open to only 3,000 players between August and September of 2007.

For those who have absolutely no idea, Metal Gear Online is an upcoming spin-off of Konami's Metal Gear series.  While it was originally announced as a stand-alone product, MGO will be released as a part of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.  An online manual is available on Konami's website.

By the way, those of you who immediately remembered which game that quote was from, who said it, and when it was uttered have my everlasting approval.

UPDATE: GameSpot reported that Konami will be releasing more details later today, April 22, at 11:00pm PST regarding this set back.