Sony canceled Hideo Kojima’s next game in June. It told nobody. Three months later, Xbox has it.
That’s the short version of a Wednesday that reordered one of the most closely watched relationships in games. Physint, the action-espionage project Kojima announced in early 2024 with considerable fanfare, will be published by Xbox instead of PlayStation. And possibly not just Physint.
“We found in Xbox a partner with whom we share a common vision for the future, and we have decided to team up with them once again,” the Metal Gear Solid creator wrote on X.
Sony went first, and it went quietly
The announcements landed in a flurry, and PlayStation moved before anyone else. “After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to step away from collaborating with Kojima Productions on its project Physint,” Sony’s gaming division said in a post on X. The company added that it looked forward to continued “close collaboration” with Kojima’s studio in the future.
That’s a lot of corporate warmth for a sentence that ends a partnership.
One minute later, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma posted that Xbox was picking up the project. “Physint and OD!” she said, referring to another Kojima and Xbox collaboration. “Proud to build both with @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN in Japan. A big moment for Xbox.”
Kojima’s version fills in the gap
Kojima then weighed in with his own X post, and his timeline is the part worth sitting with. “In mid-June of this year, we unexpectedly received notice from PlayStation Studios that they would cancel the Physint project,” his post stated. “Physint is an important project both to me personally and to Kojima Productions. Determined to keep the project alive, we have spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner” before landing on Xbox.
Unexpectedly. Tirelessly. Three months. He was surprised by Sony’s decision, and he wasn’t quiet about saying so.
The deal goes past games
Xbox laid out the scope in an Xbox Wire post: “In addition to OD and Physint, this relationship will also extend beyond games, with Xbox and Kojima Productions collaborating across film and television to bring new stories to broader audiences.”
Film and television. Which is where this gets pointed, because that was supposed to be Sony’s angle.
What did Sony see that we didn’t
The drama makes you wonder what’s going on with Physint’s development that made Sony drop it, knowing the move could create bad press and hard feelings with Kojima. Companies don’t usually take that trade unless the math got ugly somewhere.
Because Sony didn’t stumble into this project. Head of PlayStation Studios Hermen Hulst personally unveiled Physint alongside Kojima. And at the end of that announcement video, the shot pulled back to reveal Columbia Pictures, the implication being the game could lead to movies or other IP.
That Columbia logo was the whole promise. Now it belongs to somebody else’s press release.
