It sounds like Hideo Kojima was demanding a significant sum of money from Sony to make the stealth action game Physint – despite him retaining ownership of its IP and intending to release it on multiple platforms.
PlayStation announced earlier this month that it had pulled out of the project, which was first announced in 2024.
Xbox has since picked up the game, which will star Bill Skarsgard in its lead role. Development is still early, with Kojima unsure on which engine to use now that Guerrilla’s proprietary Decima appears to be out of the equation.
The game has since been picked up by Xbox, which was seen as a big PR win among gamers.
But reporting from Bloomberg’s reliable Jason Schreier suggested Sony was concerned about the project’s progress, its cost, and Kojima’s reluctance to commit to exclusivity under the circumstances.
Schreier also said that key PlayStation executives who signed the original deal, like Jim Ryan, have since retired.
Kojima Productions pushed back on these claims in a statement last week, encouraging fans to approach them with a “dose of scepticism”.
In a new video, Schreier says that negotiations between Sony and the Japanese studio had been taking place for months, with a focus on the “future of the project, about the budget of the project, about the timeline, about extensions, about exclusivity, and ultimately it didn’t lead to a satisfying result”.
The journalist added:
“By the way, while I was in Japan, several people came up to me while I was around Tokyo Game Show and various TGS parties and said, ‘Have you heard how much Kojima was asking for [to make] PHYSINT?’ The rumoured number I have not confirmed but it was pretty significant.
That said, it doesn’t mean Xbox was willing to pay that much, and in fact I think Xbox is paying less than Kojima had been asking for from PlayStation.”
It’s all interesting information from Schreier that does help to contextualise and justify Sony’s decision here.
While the optics have undoubtedly been bad for PlayStation, it does seem like Physint was going to be an extremely expensive endeavour – especially when you consider the platform holder would own nothing, and the game would be free to release elsewhere after a period of timed console exclusivity.
It doesn’t sound like a particularly great deal for Sony, regardless of how influential Kojima is.
[source youtube.com]
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As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.