In a twist worthy of the man’s catalogue of work, Hideo Kojima has revealed that Physint – a tactical stealth game first announced during a 2024 PlayStation State of Play – will no longer be published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Instead, the game will now be published by… Xbox Game Studios.
Yes, Physint has changed hands between bitter rivals amidst a bevy of incredibly confusing decisions from the PlayStation camp as of late.
The news was first confirmed via a post on Xbox Wire, before subsequent social media posts from Kojima himself as well as from PlayStation have shed further light on the situation.
“Creators have choices about where and how they bring their ideas to life. We’re honored that Kojima-san has chosen Xbox to work with Kojima Productions on Physint. His ambition to challenge conventions reflects the kind of creativity we want to support at Xbox,” said Asha Sharma, in a statement that originally included far too much capitalisation for my liking.
PlayStation’s post about the matter reads, “An update from PlayStation Studios: After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to step away from collaborating with Kojima Productions on its project Physint. We continue to have great admiration for Hideo Kojima’s vision for the game.
“Our relationship remains strong after three decades of industry-leading, genre-defining creative cooperation, and we look forward to continued close collaboration with Hideo Kojima and his award-winning independent studio in the future.”
And finally, Kojima’s English-translated post confirms that the decision from PlayStation to drop Physint has been a long time coming, only revealed now that the studio was able to secure this new partnership with Xbox.
“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. 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.”
According to the original Xbox statement, the company’s relationship with Kojima now not only encompasses Physint and the previously-announced OD, but will extend beyond games to film and television.
While novel and interesting news for obvious reasons, this now makes two upcoming releases that will more than likely miss Kojima fans who either don’t play on Xbox or PC platforms, or who continue to observe the ongoing BDS Movement action against Microsoft for its complicity in Israel’s occupation and genocide against Palestine.
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Born into the world of video games through SEGA, and in particular Sonic the Hedgehog, Kieron’s gaming tastes now consist of the latest, shiny AAA thing, an indie darling or two, and an embarrassing number of hours of Balatro.