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PlayStation cancels Kojima's PHYSINT, Xbox steps in
- carlos-menezes 22d agoThis is very strange given the long-standing relationship between the two parties.
- MYEUHD 22d agoDeath Stranding 2 underperformed. It sold only 2-3 million copies which, depending on how much money they spent on development and marketing, may be a net loss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding_2%3A_On_the_Beach#Sales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding_2%3A_On_the_Be...
- Hamuko 22d agoNo wonder they made me pay 80€ for it. Making up for the losses.
- anonymous908213 22d agoSevering your relationship with a generation-defining artist because they had one whiff that only brought in $140,000,000+ in revenue seems shortsighted, even if you actually did lose money on that entry. About what I would expect from the MBA-driven economy, though. Your golden goose has shit out 10 golden eggs for you, then it lays one regular egg and you try to kill it. Except you fail and somebody else gets your goose instead.
- embedding-shape 22d agoReally odd indeed, many of the Sony executives used to be relatively "It's OK to fail once, you've proven you can output stuff given resources", but seemingly there is a new Sony now where not obsessively cutting costs and doing bets isn't part of the culture anymore. Sad to see.
- musha68k 22d agoIt's still the same kind of leadership that also closed Japan Studio as well as Studio Liverpool. They don't understand what made the brand great in aggregate.
- poloniculmov 22d agoKojima has a history of overspending by trying to make grandiose but weird games. And while they performed well, MGS4 sold less then The Last of Us or other big hits. I think that Kojima's games are games that people talk about more than they play. Probably MGS5 is the only one that actually "plays good".
- stevefan1999 22d agoBack then gaming wasn't as big as it is today. It does make sense to have TLOU outsold MGS4, they have 5 years gap, it is more than a decade later for both games now. I think we need to talk about percentage impacts rather than absolute numbers.
- bargainbin 22d agoBut how many of those games are console shifters? Hell back in the day I finally caved and bought a PS3 because of MGS4. Alright it may only shift say, 60% of the units, but if more of those units included a console purchase too then the onward value is huge.
- poloniculmov 22d agoUncharted did more for PS3 than MGS4. I doubt anyone bought a PS4 for Death Stranding.
- N_Lens 22d agoThe W in MBA stands for Wisdom!
- moduspol 22d agoSony also presumably has a lot of visibility into the project, and it was already being framed as "genre-defining." I've loved various Kojima games but especially with the other exclusives line-up that Sony has, I can understand this is just too much risk for them. It remains to be seen what egg will be laid in this case, how many golden ones may come after, and how many end up on Playstation anyway.
- vor_ 22d agoKojima is infamous for being difficult to work with as well as expensive, and Death Stranding 2 didn't do that well after the already-divisive Death Stranding. I think describing him as a generation-defining artist is a bit much, something a devoted fan might say. His mistreatment of David Hayter because David isn't an A-list Hollywood actor really soured my view of him. By all accounts, Kojima has a fantasy of being a Hollywood director and hanging out with movie stars, and he wants to make gigantic expensive Hollywood movie-esque projects. I'm not surprised Sony would get cold feet.
- ASalazarMX 22d agoI got Death Stranding on a Steam sale, was thrilled to play my first Hideo Kojima game, but couldn't finish it; so I understand why it has little appeal to some people. Some of the many game mechanics I didn't enjoy at all: - Holding still and holding your breath until. - Having to calm your technobaby or they will have a nervous breakdown. - Constantly tilting your weight left and right so your packages don't fall. - Slowly walking everywhere, because your packages will fall if you're not careful. I don't know it it gets better after 20 hours, I couldn't reconcile my need for entertainment against knowing 80% of those hours were spent walking and balancing my stack of packages. I'll still try another of his games, but likely not DS 2.
- archonis 22d agoYou can't have a relationship with a lawnmower.
- zzzbra 22d agoPretty remarkable. There are only three reasons I intend to buy a PS5 and Kojima games are one of them.
- proxysna 22d agoI mean every time that Kojima made a game it turned out to be something that people talk about for years on. But the second it gets slightly more ambitious investors get their panties in the knot about it even though throughout history Kojima's products made a massive return. This split will also, in my opinion, lead to Kojima losing access to Decima engine, which sucks in a whole different way.
- IslandRebel 22d agoI never bothered Death Stranding and everything after MGS-3 has been very meh IMO. He didn't really want to make MGS 4 & 5. MGS 3 itself while an excellent game overstays it welcome after you defeat "The End" IMO. The games that he is well known for at this point are really 20+ years old.
- pizzalife 22d agoI totally disagree. Death Stranding was groundbreaking in many ways.
- froh42 22d agoYes. And DS2 was somehow boring. It felt like a DLC for DS.
- bluefirebrand 22d agoI don't really understand when people find more of a good game to be boring. It's ok to take a break if you're tired of the formula or whatever but I dunno To me it seems like saying "oh no, not another delicious steak today, I couldn't possibly" I guess people just prefer more novelty than I do?
- embedding-shape 22d agoPeople gotten used to the idea of "Same as existing but more/small additions" should actually be a DLC/addon, not worthy of incrementing the number and being a successor. For those, you need to completely change the entire thing to something else, then people are fine, and it's a hit/miss if the existing players like it. Otherwise people feel like the parent, that it's just slightly different than before but incrementally improved, and should therefore be a DLC.
- olivierestsage 22d agoTalk about an unforced error on Sony's part
- justafewwords 22d agoMaaaaaan! Just a few days ago, I saw... the right video game console... "Hitachi" and then I saw... how video games used to be... (1985 - 1991) https://youtu.be/UovXq7smRwQ https://youtu.be/UovXq7smRwQ https://youtu.be/WwltLEe-QxQ https://youtu.be/WwltLEe-QxQ https://youtu.be/x98ZH03tTno https://youtu.be/x98ZH03tTno https://youtu.be/ATaAyqTnJDE https://youtu.be/ATaAyqTnJDE But, yes you may be correct, i "didn't remember their 'Bugs'"...maybe too much of a "Lag"-something. Enjoy your nearing Weekend, regards... (-:
- vor_ 22d agoI'm not so sure about that. Death Stranding 2 was expensive and didn't do all that well.
- hn9zmdcaou 22d agodecima was sony's though — xbox port means new engine, that's the real delay
- DiabloD3 22d agoNo, Guerrilla Games. The engine also already runs on virtually every platform, including the Xbox and PC, but also phones. Even though Guerilla Games is currently owned by Playstation Studios, they are still effectively an independent studio. Microsoft, otoh, owns like half a dozen engines, uses none of them, and licenses none of them. The only way I'd see a engine swap happening is if Kojima somehow swung a deal to license the newest version of the Doom engine.
- jordand 22d agoNearly no chance idTech is being used for anything outside of the few franchises that leverage it, as modern idTech versions are mainly geared towards just those FPS games. id Software has been decimated too in the recent layoffs, and there's questions over the future of idTech
- Yokolos 22d agoWhat a shame too. Quake Wars on idTech performed incredibly well for such large maps and so many players. The vehicles were also fun to drive.
- mococa 22d agohttps://xcancel.com/HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN/status/2097877506401681753 https://xcancel.com/HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN/status/20978775064016817...
- hnrprtlpdb 22d agowho actually owns the physint IP — kojima productions or sony? if sony paid for preproduction that handoff gets messy fast
- ErneX 22d agoKojima owns the IP, they also own Death Stranding, unlike other partnerships where Sony owned the IP.
- AdmiralAsshat 22d agoSurprised Valve didn't try to step in. There was a comment from a former Valve employee that they had tried to recruit Kojima for an earlier project (probably Death Stranding) but got outbid.
- samrus 22d agoProbably got outbid again. I love valve's business model/strategy/ethics, but its undeniable that a tradeoff for not being beholden to increasing shareholder value is that you often have less resources than your competitors for making big moves like this, since youre not raising capital from shareholders
- Hamuko 22d agoI imagine the problem isn't Valve's cash on hand but just their willingness to spend it.
- sparrowidle 22d ago[dead]
- kushalpandya 22d agoWhile PlayStation is on a streak of one bad decision after the other, I'd give them benefit of the doubt here. Kojima likes to work unhinged on grand ideas with a tall budget which may stick or not stick at all. So may be Sony didn't like the direction of Physint and decided to dump it. While Sony may be wrong in judging the game in its early stage, the replacement publisher, Microsoft, has solid track record of terrible taste at creating exclusives.
- dbspin 22d agoWhich of his ideas didn't stick? Pretty sure the guy hasn't had a failure in recent memory. https://www.imdb.com/list/ls596355504/ https://www.imdb.com/list/ls596355504/
- moduspol 22d agoThey're saying on Reddit that DS2's sales fell well below expectations, which wouldn't surprise me. I liked the game a lot but it was a sequel to an already fairly niche game (that I liked even more).
- OroPla 22d agoSuccess is measured in profit for companies and it seems that the numbers of what games like Death Stranding cost compared to what they earned back are not available, so it likely isn't looking rosy. I'm seeing claims of a cost in the $100M to $300M range, while seeing earnings in the $60M to $120M (as of 2025) range. That's $20M plus in the best case, which is still underwhelming.
- dbspin 22d agoThis may be the case - although none of us have access to the real figures. It's also impossible to judge success relative to marketing budget, how well the game was pushed by Sony etc. Clearly a critical success and an objectively good game however.
- kelsolaar 20d ago> As of March 2021, the game has sold 5 million copies worldwide for the PS4 and PC platforms. > By April 2025, Death Stranding had reached over 20 million players worldwide. This is surely more than $60M-$120M earnings. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding
- robbru 22d agoGive them hell, Kojima. I will buy PHYSINT on any platform that has the guts to release it.
- slaye 22d agoI imagine every publisher in the games industry dropped whatever they were doing the second they heard Kojima's game was on the market. Happy to see the project found its funding!