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The story
Director Hideo Kojima’s remark that his new game “PHYSINT” will be “the culmination of my career spanning over 40 years” became a hot topic on 5channel’s Hardware/Industry (“Geha”) board. PHYSINT was originally announced as a partnership with Sony, but development has continued since then with funding from Microsoft — and that change in backer became the main point of debate in the thread. Since Sony is said to have posted losses around the same time on several exclusive titles including Concord, Marathon, and Wolverine, opinions split between “PHYSINT got cut over internal politics rather than profitability” and “it simply wasn’t profitable,” and the discussion kept going.
What people said
Lucky MS was willing to foot the bill.
Wait, what happened to the whole "PS is profitable" narrative? 😅
PS overall is profitable.
It's just that Kojima's project alone was in the red,
so it got written off as bad debt, that's all.
If he doesn't deliver results, all that big talk gets thrown out with it.
They lost way more on the Bungie acquisition (600 billion yen) and Wolverine (50 billion yen) though.
On top of that they've had flop after money-losing flop — Saros, The Last of Us Online, Concord, Marathon, "Space Baldy" (a mocking nickname for one of Sony's sci-fi titles), and the God of War spin-off centered on "the wife."
Why should Kojima Productions have to clean up that mess? 😩
Whichever project has the worst internal evaluation gets cut first.
That's all it is.
LOL, what a pointless rebuttal.
That just means Sony's ('Cheap-ny's,' a mocking nickname for Sony) internal evaluations are wrong 🤭
Sounds like at Sony, the bigger the losses, the higher the internal evaluation 🤣🤣🤣
Kojima Productions can probably handle UE5 fine, but a hassle's still a hassle.
They're still at the stage of making OD (Kojima's other upcoming title), so this shouldn't have much impact.
This one's next in line after that.
If it can't even clear the sales bar, there's nothing to expect from this one either.
???
Concord, Marathon, Saros, and Wolverine all failed to clear the sales bar even worse than that 😟
Well, in reality it got a Metascore of 89 (91 on PC)
and a GOTY nomination, so…
Still, it's the most fun of all the Sony exclusives.
It was only nominated…
That's still a solid achievement if you ask me, Mr. Nitpicker.
Did Marathon, Concord, or Saros get nominated for anything?
Wolverine's a lock for KOTY ("Kuso [Crap] of the Year," Japan's worst-game award) though 😁
"MS is gonna drop him too, gimme gimme~"
"It'll never get finished, gimme gimme~"
He's probably just bitter because this was supposed to be his crowning return-to-Metal-Gear PS exclusive.
No need to engage with him.
Probably grown even more by now.
Can they really make both OD and PHYSINT at the same time?
They'll finish OD first, then move on to PHYSINT.
It generates buzz, doesn't it?
Same thing happened when Kimutaku (Takuya Kimura) was cast in Judgment — plenty of people who weren't drama fans or even his generation still reacted because they found it interesting.
Judgment really was great.
Playing it, Kimutaku just becomes the character Takayuki Yagami in your head,
and eventually you see him on TV and think "Yagami!!"
Kojima's games use actors too, but they haven't reached that point for me yet.
It really does feel like a rushed, last-minute reveal.
And it's literally just a photo shoot, too.
Kojima himself said something like 2030-2031, so it'll probably be for the "Helix" generation.
Well, cross-gen releases probably aren't going away next generation anyway.
Concord (service ended)
Saros
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls
Wolverine
"Space Baldy"
Oh, don't forget about Marathon, sweetie~
It's the only game Bungie — which Sony bought for 500 billion yen — has actually made under SIE.
Can they actually wrap it all up in a single game?
Given the situation, if this flops, his career as a director is over.
He's bound to be putting everything he's got into it.
He partnered with them fully intending it to be his crowning achievement,
and then it got unilaterally scrapped, nearly crushing that dream completely.
No wonder he starts calling them "Sh*tny."
he should just make movies already, seriously lol
Isn't it kind of a waste putting Hollywood stars in a video game?
If he created his own original characters instead, he could sell merch and stuff when it's a hit.
Can't do that when you're using Hollywood stars.
This time around, MS has said it'll tie in with a film/TV series.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
The backdrop to this topic is that Kojima Productions’ major title “PHYSINT” was originally announced jointly with Sony, but later moved away from the Sony camp and has continued development with funding from Microsoft. In the thread, posters pointed to the fact that Sony is said to have posted losses in quick succession around the same period on major exclusive titles — including the Bungie acquisition (600 billion yen), Concord (service ended), Wolverine (50 billion yen), Marathon, and Saros — and opinion split between the view that “PHYSINT alone being cut was more about internal politics than profitability” and the view that “it was simply dropped for being an unprofitable project.” Note that all of these figures are based on posts on 5channel and are not confirmed information backed by financial statements or similar sources. There were also replies pointing out that Director Kojima had used the phrase “culmination of my career” back when the partnership with Sony was first announced, suggesting this isn’t the first time he’s said it. As for the release timing on next-generation hardware, that remains in the realm of anonymous speculation and should be read as distinct from any official announcement.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (Hardware/Industry “Geha”) thread “Director Kojima: ‘This (PHYSINT) Will Be the Culmination of My Career Spanning Over 40 Years’.”
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