In June came the news that PlayStation ended its deal with Kojima Productions’ action espionage game “Physint,” the company pulling out of the project which was currently in production.
Then, earlier this week came the news that Xbox had signed a new deal with Kojima’s company to publish the game.
In a follow-up report, Bloomberg has revealed why Sony ditched the game – namely budget concerns and issues of profitability and exclusivity.
Speaking with people familiar with the project, the underperformance of Kojima’s two “Death Stranding” games was said to play a big part.
The title had also reportedly missed several deadlines, was on track to be over budget, and was years away from release. Rather than invest hundreds of millions more in a project, especially one that wouldn’t remain a permanent exclusive to PlayStation consoles, ultimately led to the decision.
With Xbox now publishing “Physint,” the game will launch on Xbox consoles and PC day one. An Xbox spokesperson says: “Betting on Kojima-san is an easy call. We believe in his team’s ability to build AAA games with groundbreaking, new IP and we believe in OD, Physint, and our growing partnership.”
The news comes on the eve of the release of Sony’s first real major single-player AAA exclusive in a year, “Marvel’s Wolverine,” and reviews have been decidedly underwhelming.
