Hideo Kojima has been closely associated with the PlayStation brand for as long as the former has been around. When he broke ties with Konami and reformed Kojima Productions as an independent studio, he immediately signed on with Sony for Death Stranding, a PlayStation console exclusive. Recent reports, however, have suggested that there might be a major paradigm shift coming soon, and that allegedly, Xbox and Kojima are close to signing a deal for the studio’s next game.
That’s a pretty surprising twist, if it does end up happening, and many have been left to wonder why Kojima is pivoting from Sony to Microsoft. Well, apparently, that may not have been his first choice. In the recent episode of the Xbox Era podcast, insider Shpeshal_Ed stated that Kojima Productions originally went to Sony with a pitch for their next game. Sony, however, was not satisfied with how Death Stranding did commercially, and as such, turned down the offer to work with Kojima again.
He also suggests that Kojima may have been in talks with Google and Stadia for a while, owing to the fact that his game apparently makes a lot of use of cloud technology, but that ultimately, talks with Microsoft progressed further. The Microsoft-Kojima deal is apparently close to being completed, so if it does happen, we might be hearing about it quite soon.
Kojima Productions’ art director Yoji Shinkawa did recently mention that the studio’s next game would be announced in the near future, so here’s hoping we don’t have to wait too long.
