PlayStation Dropped Hideo Kojima’s Physint Due to Budget Overrun and Weak Death Stranding 2 Sales

This week, it was officially announced that Hideo Kojima and his Kojima Productions had parted ways with PlayStation—in the context of the game designer’s upcoming project, Physint. The initial report claimed that the Japanese company had refused to fund the game, and as a result, it is now under the Xbox umbrella. Now, however, more interesting details have emerged on this matter.

Bloomberg has published a new report shedding more light on the situation involving Physint. As revealed by journalist Jason Schreier, financial concerns were the main trigger for this situation. The budget for Kojima’s new game reportedly far exceeded PlayStation’s expectations, even though it is still in the early stages of development. Additionally, their decision was influenced by sales of the Death Stranding series, which fell significantly short of expectations. Another reason is that the company did not want to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a game that would remain a PlayStation exclusive without the possibility of generating additional revenue. This ultimately forced Hideo Kojima to join forces with Xbox—and it appears that this deal will benefit both parties.

PlayStation reportedly pulled out of Hideo Kojima's ‘PHYSINT’ due to 3 reasons:

• PlayStation didn't want to invest more money in a game that wouldn’t be permanently exclusive to PS consoles
• The ‘Death Stranding’ games didn’t meet PlayStation's revenue expectations
• The game was tracking to be over budget after missing some deadlines

Given that Physint was apparently originally intended as a PlayStation exclusive—whether for this generation or the next—and that Xbox will now be the publisher, this means that Hideo Kojima’s new game will likely not only skip the Sony console but also be released on PC—though at this point, this is nothing more than speculation. In other words, what a turnaround.

As for Death Stranding sales, there are indeed some very surprising statistics, and Sony had good reason to weigh all the risks. According to a recent Alinea Analytics report, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, released last year, sold a modest 2.5 million copies (1.8 million on PlayStation 5 and 700,000 on PC—even before Sony decided to stop releasing single-player games on the platform). So, it’s no surprise that PlayStation has turned to these statistics when considering Kojima’s next project, Physint.

But Physint won’t be the only Hideo Kojima game published by Xbox—there’s also a horror game titled OD, and despite the restructuring that took place this summer, it has been confirmed that the game designer’s project is safe. Both games are reportedly still in the early stages of development and do not have release dates.