Following Kojima Productions’ statement regarding recent reports about the company’s dealings with Sony for the development and publishing of Physint, author of the original report, Jason Schreier, has noted that the statement doesn’t really contradict anything, and as such, he doesn’t have anything to add to the matter. In a social media post, Schreier also said that Sony’s decision to walk away from the project came after “several months of negotiations” between the two companies.
“I saw the statement from Kojima Productions today — it doesn’t dispute any of our reporting, so I don’t have much to add there. But I will add that (as I said a couple of weeks ago), the Physint cancellation came after several months of negotiations between KoPro and Sony. Wasn’t exactly out of nowhere.”
In a follow-up post, Schreier also said that his original report was based on conversations he had with “multiple people across Sony, Xbox, and Kojima Productions.”
In his original report, Schreier had said that the deal between Sony and Kojima Productions to publish Physint was canceled due to the studio having missed important deadlines, as well as the fact that the project would require additional investments of potentially “hundreds of millions” more.
For its part, Kojima Productions has said that the report didn’t arise from any “official or on-the-record source,” and that fans of the studio’s work should take the report with “a dose of scepticism”.
“You may have seen a recent article that mentions Kojima Productions, speculating on the reasons for the change in publishing partners for Physint. Normally, we would not comment on unsubstantiated speculation on the internet, but these aspersions around our relationship with PlayStation, the commercial performance of the Death Stranding franchise, and the broader production planning and investment for Physint have reached beyond the studio and have touched our fans, our creative partners, and colleagues we have worked alongside for three decades.”
Further in its statement, Kojima Productions went on to note that it is in “a healthy, profitable state”, and that development on Physint would be continuing as part of a new deal the studio had signed with Xbox. Along with this, the developer also said that “our relationship with PlayStation remains strong.”
Sony’s announcement that it is dropping its deal with Kojima Productions came about earlier this month, with the company calling it a “difficult decision”. While studio head Hideo Kojima had said that he was looking for a new publishing partner for Physint, the company eventually signed a deal with Xbox.
“This expands our relationship with Xbox beyond OD. As we move forward with the development of PHYSINT, we remain committed to redefining the action-espionage genre for players around the world,” said Kojima.
More recently, Kojima also revealed through a new video update that the main protagonist in Physint will be played by Bill Skarsgård. Other confirmed cast members for the espionage game include Charlee Fraser, Don Lee, and Minami Hamabe, and more cast members are slated to be revealed as development continues. The same video also provided an update on horror project OD, which Kojima said was progressing at a steady pace.
