Physint, Hideo Kojima’s upcoming espionage action game, now has two competing explanations for why PlayStation walked away from it. Bloomberg reports that budget overruns, missed deadlines and disappointing Death Stranding sales drove the decision. Kojima Productions has answered by urging fans to treat those claims with scepticism, and Kojima himself says Sony ended its funding on a Zoom call without ever telling him why. The reasons Bloomberg lists come from unnamed sources and remain unconfirmed by either Sony or the studio, which is why this belongs in the rumour column for now.
At a glance
Bloomberg reports that PlayStation dropped Physint over budget, missed deadlines and Death Stranding’s sales.
Kojima Productions says none of those claims came from an official or on-the-record source.
Kojima says Sony cut funding in June on a Zoom call and has given him no reason since.
What Bloomberg reports about Physint
The move itself is not in dispute. Physint was set to be funded and published by PlayStation, and earlier this month Xbox took over as its partner. What remains contested is why. On 11 September, Jason Schreier reported for Bloomberg on the reasons, citing people familiar with the project who were not named.
According to that report, the commercial performance of Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach fell short of PlayStation’s revenue expectations. Physint itself had reportedly missed deadlines and was on course to run well over budget, despite still being years from release. Sony was also said to be reluctant to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to another game that would not stay exclusive to its hardware, given that both Death Stranding games eventually reached PC.
Taken together, those points sketch a publisher that judged the bet too expensive for what it was bringing back. Every one of those reasons rests on anonymous sourcing. Neither Sony nor Kojima Productions has confirmed them, and PlayStation’s only public comment on the split has been to call it a difficult decision reached after careful consideration, without any detail on its motives.
That silence is exactly what left room for the press to fill in the gaps. When a publisher the size of Sony parts ways with a creator it has worked with for decades, the question of why was always going to be asked, and it still has no official answer.
Kojima Productions pushes back
On 20 September, Kojima Productions posted a statement on its official English-language X account. The studio said it would not normally comment on unsubstantiated speculation, but that claims about its relationship with PlayStation, the commercial performance of the Death Stranding franchise and the production planning of Physint had reached its fans and creative partners.
Its core argument is about sourcing: none of the claims, it says, came from any official or on-the-record source, so readers should take them with a dose of scepticism. The studio added that it is healthy and profitable, that Physint’s development is progressing smoothly with Xbox, and that its relationship with PlayStation remains strong.
Based on the passages quoted in coverage, the statement challenges the sourcing more than it rebuts each claim one by one, and it leans heavily on the studio’s financial health, which is the point a report about ballooning budgets touches most directly.
Kojima’s account: a Zoom call in June
The same day, Kojima gave his own version in an interview with IGN, billed as his first since PlayStation’s exit. He said Sony told him in June, on a Zoom call, that it could no longer fund Physint’s development, and that he was so shocked he struggled to take in what he had heard.
Kojima said Sony gave no reason at the time and has not contacted him since. He was careful to add that he is not fighting with Sony and that there is no dispute between them, while suggesting that a working relationship of around 30 years deserved earlier warning. Kojima Productions, he noted, is an independent studio of about 200 people working on two projects, Physint and OD, so losing funding for one of them was a serious threat.
Two stories that can both be true
Read side by side, the accounts clash less than they first appear to. Kojima says he was never given Sony’s reasons, and Bloomberg says it has learned them from inside sources. Both can hold at once, since a publisher can have clear motives and still choose not to share them with its partner.
The real friction is about the studio’s image. Runaway budgets and missed deadlines are not neutral charges for a team trying to reassure a new publisher and future players, which may help explain why the statement dwells so much on Kojima Productions being healthy, profitable and on track with Xbox.
For players, the practical picture is simpler. Physint is now in development with Xbox, no release date has been announced, and the game is still years away according to Bloomberg’s own reporting. Until Sony speaks, or named sources confirm or contradict the report, the reasons behind the split stay in rumour territory.
Upcoming release dates and major updates are tracked in our games calendar, which you can filter by platform.