The reason for the countdowns

At first the countdowns to countdowns idea seems idiotic. Obviously Kojima Productions is creating hype for their new Metal Gear game announcement. But why would they do such an idiotic strategy of countdowns to countdowns? Why not just announce it at E3 and that's it?

Could it be that they know something else? Like that a 360 port of MGS4 done by some other developer is coming?

Could it be that the reason for the countdown is to make their announcement bigger than someone else's announcement? Like: "Well, there it is a port of an one year old game to that other system, but here it is a brand new Metal Gear game coming for the PS3 and PSP". If that's the case then the countdowns could be explained as a measure to make sure that some other announcement won't shadow their own announcement.

By seeing how much time is devoted in forums and media about a random Twitter post instead of a teaser site from the company itself that clearly shows something new is coming, followed by an interview in a Japanese magazine, the idea of "countdowns to countdowns" actually makes sense.

So I am curious about what the PS3 will be getting in terms of MGS games this E3, besides release dates for other games, such as God of War 3 or Uncharted 2.

The idea might make sense, but it doesn't make it any less asinine or stupid.

Just can't keep it to the threads that already exist can we?