Kojima moves to Xbox after PlayStation tried to cancel new stealth game

Roughly a decade ago, Konami had a very dramatic falling out with Hideo Kojima, the legendary game director behind the Metal Gear Solid series. As a result, Sony garnered some swift PR by helping Kojima start up his new studio and funding his latest IP, Death Stranding. Now, almost another ten years on, Sony has split up from Kojima.

In a statement today, Sony confirmed that it has decided to no longer partner with Kojima Productions on their game PhysInt, which was described as a new tactical espionage series, essentially a spiritual successor to Metal Gear. While Sony's statement downplayed the cancellation somewhat and made it sound like Kojima and Sony would work together again in the future, Kojima's own statement on the matter delivers a very different takeaway.

In his own statement on what happened, Kojima said: “As confirmed earlier through our official channels, in mid-June of this year, we unexpectedly received notice from PlayStation Studios that they would cancel the PHYSINT project. 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.”

And it turns out that partner is none other than … Xbox: “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. Please rest assured that development of PHYSINT, our genre-defining action-espionage title, is ongoing and will continue moving forward.”

Microsoft began forming a relationship with Kojima a few years ago by funding an experimental horror project titled OD: Knock. Now, Xbox will also be publishing Kojima's PHYSINT as well and it is unclear if either game will release on PlayStation consoles.

KitGuru Says: PHYSINT should have been a slam dunk with long-time fans, but now this will end up being an easy win for Xbox, who look primed to deliver on the single-player games front next generation, an area that has been sorely lacking for PlayStation Studios over the past few years.

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