Kojima Addresses Physint’s Sony Partnership Cancelling Rumors, Though Doesn’t Deny Them Fully
Last week, the video game industry was rocked when legendary video game director Hideo Kojima announced that the in-development spiritual successor to Metal Gear, titled “Physint,” was shifting from Sony to Xbox. PlayStation had revealed it had terminated its partnership with Kojima and his studio for Physint, forcing them to seek a new partner. That partnership happened to be PlayStation’s long-time gaming rival, Xbox.
But with little information about the reasoning behind the cancellation, rumors quickly circulated, with one report suggesting it was because the studio hit high budgets, missed deadlines, and failed to meet sales expectations for its previous series, Death Stranding. In a rare instance, Kojima Productions issued a statement about the speculation, though it didn’t entirely deny the rumors.
Kojima Had the Cancellation News Broken Over a Zoom Call
Taking to X, this is what Kojima Productions had to say about the recent article published by Bloomberg:
“You may have seen a recent article that mentions KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS, speculating on the reasons for the change in publishing partners for PHYSINT.
Normally, we would not comment on unsubstantiated speculation on the internet, but these aspersions around our relationship with PlayStation, the commercial performance of the DEATH STRANDING franchise, and the broader production planning and investment for PHYSINT, have reached beyond the studio and have touched our fans, our creative partners, and colleagues we have worked alongside with for three decades.
None of the claims written came from any official or on-the-record source and as such we encourage you to take them with a dose of scepticism.
Make no mistake, this was a serious situation for the studio with a range of potentially significant implications. While we recognise that the article may have caused alarm, we want to reassure you all, for the record: that the studio is in a healthy, profitable state, development for PHYSINT continues to move forward with XBOX, and our relationship with PlayStation remains strong.
Thank you for your continued support, KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS”
While it may seem like they are claiming the rumors are false, they aren’t denying anything; they’re leaning toward telling fans to treat the rumor with skepticism, since it was off the record and didn’t come from an official source. In reality, all rumors are off the record, and the statement doesn’t directly address anything about budgets or deadlines.
What’s more, Kojima did an interview with IGN where, while the official statement on X says the studio is in a healthy state, it seems that without this project being picked up, the studio would have been in a position where it wouldn’t have been healthy.
“We are an independent company, so no funding is behind us as a corporation. We sign contracts according to projects, and that’s how we survive one by one as an indie. So I need to find a new project before the previous project ends, and that’s how we stay alive. That’s our background situation.
So in June, SIE said they wanted to have a Zoom call. I was so busy at that time — I had just gone to New York for a Prada event and then to LA right after. But anyway, I came back and we had this Zoom call.
They said they can no longer fund development for Physint. I was shocked and I said, “What did you say?” I couldn’t quite process what they had said. I wasn’t sure because I was in shock.
Anyway, I know there’s a lot of news in the game industry that many studios are closing down, many titles are canceled, and I understand the situation in the industry as a whole. But I thought Physint was okay. That Physint was safe. So I was surprised. But not just surprised. We didn’t understand the reason. I didn’t have any anger or sadness; my first thought was, “What am I going to do with my studio?” Because we signed contracts for projects. Of course I had OD, but I only have two projects in my studio: OD and Physint. And I hire according to how many projects we have, and we have two. If we lose one contract, I thought I might have to cut all the people working on Physint, right? Or our studio could end up collapsing because we’ll run out of cashflow.“
It’s contradictory in ways.
In response, Jason Schreier of Bloomberg took to ResetEra to address the statement, also noting that nothing is actually denied in the statement.
“There’s no denial here so nothing I feel any particular need to respond to, but one thing I’ll add (and I believe I said this in my video) is that Sony and Kojima Productions were in negotiations over the future of the game for a while before it was canceled. Kojima Productions may be unhappy about how SIE handled it, but the news didn’t come out of nowhere.”
It seems like a lot of PR play here, but honestly, does this matter? The project is saved, and for us fans, that’s what really matters. Whether it becomes a financial hit for Xbox is something we’ll have to wait and see, but maybe it’s time to put this drama behind us and hope for the best.
I don’t know; I’m excited to see how this project turns out.
