PlayStation Ditched Hideo Kojima's 'Physint' on Budget Concerns, Missed Deadlines

Sony reportedly pulled PlayStation funding from Hideo Kojima's upcoming espionage game Physint over concerns about its ballooning budget, missed deadlines, profitability, and the fact that it would not remain permanently exclusive to PlayStation. Kojima Productions has since struck a deal with Xbox, which plans to publish the game on both Xbox and PC. It's also secured film and television rights. Bloomberg reports: The new game, Physint, hasn't yet been shown publicly but excited fans when it was announced two years ago with its promise of returning to the "espionage action" genre Kojima pioneered with Metal Gear Solid, the series that propelled him to industry stardom. Kojima surprised fans this week when he announced he would be publishing Physint with PlayStation's biggest rival, Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox.

On Wednesday night, Kojima wrote on social media that over the summer his company had "unexpectedly received notice" that PlayStation was pulling out of funding the game. "Physint is an important project both to me personally and to Kojima Productions," he wrote. "Determined to keep the project alive, we have spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner."

PlayStation also addressed the split on social media, saying it had made the "difficult decision to step away." Microsoft said it was "honored" that Kojima chose Xbox and that the two teams plan to collaborate beyond games on films and television, too. [...] The decision to part ways with Kojima is a significant move for PlayStation that may have ripple effects.

[...] One key factor is the PC platform, where the Death Stranding games have generated some revenue. Earlier this year, Sony decided it will no longer release single-player PlayStation games on PC, Bloomberg reported. Sony would therefore not benefit when Kojima Productions released a PC version of Physint on its own or with a different publisher, as it did for the first Death Stranding. But Xbox releases all of its games on PCs and plans to publish Physint on PC and Xbox, said the people. "Betting on Kojima-san is an easy call," said an Xbox spokesperson. "We believe in his team's ability to build AAA games with groundbreaking, new IP and we believe in OD, Physint, and our growing partnership."

Re:

[sabbede]

Personal political views don't belong everywhere. People don't like being preached at everywhere they turn, even if they agree with the sermon.

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[ArchieBunker]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

I'm not much of a gamer but the documentary about him was interesting.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

WTF does that mean? Speak English.

It makes sense in Japanese.

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[Anonymous Coward]

After pivoting away from a successful strategy to a string of experimental flops, game platform company Sony makes some pragmatic decisions and ditches game developer Kojima's game due to budget and deadline problems and also because the game would not remain exclusive to the platform.

Some people think it's a big deal because the developer Kojima is either an infamous or beloved auteur depending on who you talk to. This is because he is up his own ass and you either like this or you hate his flavor. He had

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[martin-boundary]

Nah. I suspect one of the Sony executives vibe coded the whole game himself in an afternoon, and at the board meeting they all agreed that they don't need Kojima any more.

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[sabbede]

That Hideo Kojima is making a game called Physint, from which Sony has pulled funding. Is that what you're looking for?

Exclusives

[tiananmen tank man]

When ms bought Bethesda, I was prepared to switch to xbox but when they said future elder scrolls weren't Xbox exclusives, I didn't care if my audio CDs had rootkits.

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[Brain-Fu]

Do people still buy audio CDs?

Re: Exclusives

[sodul]

Yes, the fans buy them as collectors items, even if they do not own a player.

Dropping something from Kojima?

[gweihir]

Talk about being cowards. Business in the creative space requires a certain amount of risk-taking. If you cannot even do that for somebody like Kojima, you are probably cooked.

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[thegarbz]

I don't blame them for having cold feet after the disaster that was Concord.

Concord was not risk taking. It was a me-too trend chaser. On the flip side Kojima could create a game where players do nothing but walk for 50 hours and it would still be considered a roaring success. Oh wait, it was.

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[gweihir]

Yes. Concord failed because it was more of the same and nobody cared. That is not what Kojima does. My take is Sony got Kojima exactly for this, then got cold feet when they saw he had new ideas.

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[jhoegl]

Kojima has a big fan base, is known for making games that have superior story telling, and even though the UI is familiar in all of them, brings in tons of money.
Kojima didnt bring in failures, so I am damn sure this is about something deeper than just missed deadlines.
Also, every game has missed deadlines, its not unique. Studios are constantly under pressure to just churn out games.
Very few get the luxury of developing games, and I think only one is developing the Engine AND the game these days.
Wherea

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[gweihir]

My take is something ins wrong with Sony. They last disaster was due to lack of innovation and new ideas. They probably got Kojima to do something about that, but then they saw innovation and new ideas and got cold feed.

This is kind of why Konami got out of the biz

[rsilvergun]

They were pretty honest about it. AAA games made a lot of money when they succeeded but it tended to be kind of All or nothing and they just couldn't handle the risk anymore. I can't really blame them you're really betting the entire Farm every time you put out a game that's got to be miserable and high stress.

Sega for example had a string of well received Sonic the hedgehog games none of which they made any money off of. But the brand itself and the movies made a shitload of money to make up for it.

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[thegarbz]

Sega for example had a string of well received Sonic the hedgehog games none of which they made any money off of.

Did they? The fact I'm reading about this from you here is probably why they didn't make any money. Marketing remains a thing. Without looking, what are Sega's upcoming games? At some point you need to rely on more than just hoping you will show up on Steam's front page to sell a game. You know about Wolverine even though it's not out yet, maybe you should let Sega know how that works.

Also Konami got out of the biz because selling mobile game clickers to idiots is a cheaper way to make money and appease sha

What about Playstation?

[drinkypoo]

Xbox releases all of its games on PCs and plans to publish Physint on PC and Xbox, said the people.

They should release it on Playstation as well, with some nice long Microsoft and Xbox bumpers during load.

Re:What about Playstation?

[tlhIngan]

They should release it on Playstation as well, with some nice long Microsoft and Xbox bumpers during load.

Supposedly a big reason PlayStation cancelled it was because Kojima wanted a physical release as well. And with Sony ditching discs (and repurposing their Austrian pressing plant), well, that wasn't going to happen.

Sony's no-more-physical plan has also caused some games to be forced to release in December 2027 because of it.

If a physical release is going to be mandatory then it bodes well that the next Xbox (Helix) will have the option for a disc drive.

The whole budget thing was just a cover - the timing of all this happening lines up with the whole Sony scrapping physical media.

Is it too much to ask�

[BcNexus]

Is it really too much to ask that major companies be good at two things at once? Dual competence is essential for any long-term business survival. A company needs to master both its core discipline and financial operations. For example:

• Boeing should be skilled in both engineering and business. Strip away the engineering, and you get dangerous products, death(!) and broken trust.
• Warner-Discovery should be competent at entertainment and business. Put a dude-David Zazlov-and C-suite people in charge who o

New online games

[BriCheese]

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