While Xbox’s recent layoffs and reorganization were shocking enough, the world was arguably more caught off guard by PlayStation withdrawing from Kojima Productions’ Physint. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported that it was due to a combination of factors, from a large budget and missed deadlines to the project still being years off from release (the developer later encouraged “skepticism” about all this).
But when you think of a big budget, does $400 million come to mind? That was the figure that Chris Dring of The Game Business originally claimed, but there’s since been some pushback. On ResetEra, Schreier said he was “hesitant to get into exact numbers without seeing documentation or corroborating them with multiple firsthand sources, as always.” However, even with all the numbers flying around, he claimed, “Someone at Xbox with firsthand knowledge of the deal told me that they signed Physint for significantly less than this.”
Windows Central’s Jez Corden echoed this sentiment, noting that “first-hand sources with direct knowledge of the contracts that the figure for Physint is far lower than what is being reported here. It has been suggested to me that the ‘$400 million’ figure is potentially what Sony and PlayStation might’ve been on the hook for until they cancelled the deal.”
By comparison, the current figure for Xbox and Kojima Productions is reportedly a “fraction” of that, and that along with movie and TV licenses for the tactical espionage title, the deal seemingly included “enhanced terms” for horror title OD. What those could be remains unknown, but it’s certainly not surprising given how strongly the relationship between both companies has developed.
For now, neither Physint nor OD have a release date, and Kojima isn’t even sure whether the former will launch on PlayStation or continue using Guerrilla’s proprietary Decima Engine. However, the studio insists that its relationship with the publisher remains strong. Never say never.
