Hideo Kojima gave an interview to Famitsu iPhone magazine, and gave up a lot of detail on the forthcoming Metal Gear Solid Touch.
Your next Metal Gear is a 20 stage game but, ruh roh, you don't get them all at once. "Of these, 12 stages will be available initially," according to Anoop Gantayat at Andriasang.com, who translated the piece. "After a while, Konami will distribute a full version of the game. Those who purchased the initial 12 stage version will be able to upgrade to the full version for free." Commence knee-jerk DLC bitching now.
The game also is brought to us by Kojima Productions' first female producer - Yasuyo Watanabe. Kojima explains he brought her aboard specifically because of her experience with the iPhone. "If someone like himself were to make an iPhone game, he would make it with game-like ideas," said Gantayat's translation. "That's fine for a pure game machine, but with hardware like iPhone which is mainly used as a phone and music player, he felt that her promotional viewpoint would be useful."
Kojima called Metal Gear Solid Touch "simple, but solidly playable." He thinks the volume offered by the iPhone and iPod Touch's installation base will translate to solid growth for "one idea products" - games that are well designed but not too complex (I think that's what he means.)
"I believe there are many people who know about MGS's existence. However, I believe there are also many people who don't play it because they think it looks hard," Kojima said, according to the translation. "I'd like those people to sample the MGS world as lightheartedly as one would listen to music. Of course, I'd like fans to also enjoy themselves."
Hideo Kojima interviewed in Famitsu iPhone [andriasang]