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Earlier today, Konami held a small Metal Gear gathering for a select number of fans of the series as well as members of the games industry press and other various industry big wigs.

The event, which took place in Tokyo this morning, was a celebration of 20 years of Metal Gear. Among talk of the long awaited Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Kojima Productions used this event to reveal several new titles for the Metal Gear universe, including an online game.

Metal Gear Online, featuring characters and settings from the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 4, will support up to 16 player multiplayer in games of team-based “strategic” deathmatches. To help emphasize teamwork, each player’s character has nanomachines injected into their bloodstream, allowing other players on their team to monitor their current location, health, and where they are aiming. Aside from just keeping track of teammates, injecting enemy players with the nanomachines will allow opponents to keep track of each other as well.

Slated as a Playstation 3 exclusive, Kojima revealed that Metal Gear Online will enter a closed beta test (which seem to be all the rage these days *cough*Halo3*cough*) from August 7th to September 3rd in Japan. Beta applications will be accepted from now until August 6th, however there was no word on when, or even if, there will be a beta test for other territories.

Aside from the announcement of Metal Gear Online, Kojima revealed a few projects in the works for Sony’s handheld, the PSP. Metal Gear Portable Ops Plus, is the continuation of the PSP’s successful Metal Gear game, as well as Metal Gear Solid 2 Bande Desinee, a Metal Gear graphic novel that will be view exclusively on the PSP.

Next up is the Metal Gear Collection, releasing this week in Japan, which is set to contain every Metal Gear game starting with the original Playstation hit Metal Gear Solid, and including MGS 2, 3, and Portable Ops. The package will be available for PS2 for all games except Portable Ops, which still requires a PSP to play.

Finally Kojima showed off a brand new mobile game creatively titled Metal Gear Solid Mobile. Able to be played on a brand new Metal Gear branded cell phone, MGS Mobile will be a 3D cell phone game, following the story from the original Metal Gear Solid game.

With these huge announcements coming from Konami just weeks after the close of the recent E3 conference, and during a private Konami event no less, it is starting to look more and more like E3 might very well be replace by private events held by individual publishers and developers throughout the year, as opposed to one massive event such as E3. Only time will tell at this point.