Sony’s split from Kojima explained in new report

We learned earlier this week that Sony had pulled out of PHYSINT, forcing Kojima Productions to find a new publisher and ultimately landing with Xbox. Now, a new report has shed some light on why the relationship between Sony and Kojima broke down. 

According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, PHYSINT had already slipped past several milestones and was trending over budget. Sony was also concerned about long‑term profitability, as Death Stranding and its sequel did not meet the company’s revenue expectations.

Another factor appears to be the changing landscape inside PlayStation. Many of the executives who originally backed Kojima Productions after the Konami fallout have since left the company. Their replacements were reportedly less invested in continuing the partnership, leaving PHYSINT without the internal advocates it once would've had.

On the other side, Microsoft says it is “honored” to work with Kojima and plans to collaborate on his film / TV efforts alongside games. Microsoft is also excited about the prospect of benefitting from Kojima's releases on the PC platform, as titles like Death Stranding had big followings on platforms like Steam, and Microsoft has the infrastructure in house to publish on PC, something that Sony wasn't doing until recently, and has now stopped doing again.

PHYSINT remains in development and is described as a “genre-defining action-espionage” game. Unfortunately, there is no word on how long the game will take to finish, or when we'll get our first look at it in action.

KitGuru Says: Sony’s reasoning makes sense from a business perspective, but it is still surprising to see the company walk away from a prestige creator at a time when its single‑player output has slowed. PHYSINT landing at Xbox is a major shift and one that could pay off significantly for Microsoft.

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