Earlier this week, it was announced that PlayStation Studios and Sony had walked away from Physint, the ambitious new stealth-action game from Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima. Shortly after, it was announced that Kojima Productions would now be partnering with XBOX on the continued development of the game. At the time, however, we didn’t really know the why behind the big shakeup.
A new report from Bloomberg helps paint more of the picture now, however, claiming that PlayStation ultimately pulled out of the project because of concerns over “budget, potential profitability, and exclusivity.”
According to Bloomberg’s sources, a major factor behind the decision was that Death Stranding and its sequel, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, failed to meet Sony’s sales expectations. The company was also hesitant to sink hundreds of millions of dollars into a project that wouldn’t remain exclusively locked to PlayStation.
The other issue is that, apparently, Physint missed internal deadlines and was quickly on course to be over budget. All of these factors led to Sony ultimately pulling the plug, although we haven’t heard more of the reasoning for XBOX picking up the project beyond what it has said publicly. In an update on X, Kojima himself wrote,
“We have spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner. In the course of seeking advice and pursuing negotiations with people across many fields, 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.
Physint, of course, isn’t nearly the only game to get the axe under budgetary or other concerns for Sony. The company recently scaled back development on Destiny 2 alongside Bungie, and over the last few years has cancelled multiple games, including a live-service God of War, multiplayer The Last of Us, a live-service game from Bend Studio, and even the closure of Bluepoint Games, the studio behind the Demon’s Souls remake.
