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The story
Game director Hideo Kojima’s own post on X, made after the end of his contract with Sony — his publishing partner at Kojima Productions — has stirred controversy on 5ch for reportedly showing no gratitude. Bloomberg reports that Sony pulled out of development on the new title ‘PHYSINT’ over budget overruns and missed deadlines, sending the project to Xbox instead. The Death Stranding series is also said to have sold below Sony’s expectations. On 5ch’s Hardware & Industry board, opinions were split over the circumstances of the contract termination and the scale of Sony’s investment, which had long supported Kojima Productions since it went independent.
What people said
No need to post that on X.
They're basically an ex he divorced by paperwork without ever meeting face to face.
No, that's exactly the lie Kojima's telling lol.
Apparently he was still being offered a buyout right up to the end.
A buyout offer? Is Bloomberg the source?
We don't even know the terms of the buyout.
Maybe he turned down a contract that basically said 'become our slave,' and got cut suddenly.
The unit numbers were only padded out by fire-sale discounts and free giveaways on Epic — it never actually translated into real sales.
Damn, it's actually true.
Bloomberg: PlayStation Drops Hideo Kojima's 'PHYSINT' Over Budget Concerns and Missed Deadlines
▪Death Stranding 1 & 2 sales fell short of Sony's revenue expectations
▪PHYSINT reportedly missed its deadline and is expected to run significantly over budget
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-11/hideo-kojima-s-physint-video-game-dropped-by-playstation-goes-to-xbox?srnd=undefined
If they funded it themselves, it wouldn't matter what they made or how long it took.
Did Death Stranding just not make much money?
Whether it's film or games, there are all kinds of independent studios.
Some are fully self-funded on a small scale, others partner with major companies project by project to raise huge budgets.
They'll blow through money like water and blow past every deadline.
No doubt about that.
Phil failed for the same reason too.
Ended up getting axed as a result.
They say creators are amateurs when it comes to business.
That's why manga artists have editors.
Surely they're not defending Sony while bashing Director Kojima now?
They're Kojima fanboys, right? Of course they're bashing Sony.
Kojima went independent when realistically only small-scale development should've been possible,
and Sony let him keep a 200-employee company running for ten years.
Sony's investment was probably well beyond a few billion yen — you could call it an exceptionally generous deal.
Where was this money even coming from??
tps://i.imgur.com/kWWUcU1.jpeg
tps://i.imgur.com/LZCqR1o.jpeg
tps://i.imgur.com/S2ilEf2.jpeg
tps://i.imgur.com/Mkp6PGu.jpeg
There's no way a bank would lend money to someone with zero track record as a business manager, so
it must be thanks to Sony.
It's multiplatform lol
The condition is that it won't come out on PS5 lol
Since it's after Xbox pulled out of hardware, it'll be PC and PlayStation, right?
If it comes to that, it'll just get shelved.
PlayStation's the one more likely to have pulled out by then lol
According to Kojima, 'the bank rep was a Metal Gear fan, so they lent me the money.'
How's he even going to pay it back, I wonder.
He actually said that for real? lol
The source is a Famitsu interview, so it's legit.
ttps://www.famitsu.com/news/201910/09184726.html
Whoa, seriously lol
That's… a lot to take in.
Setting track record aside, he had no fame to speak of either…
— You were hunting for office space, gathering staff, and choosing a game engine all at the same time, right?
Kojima: Even when I went to the bank, they wouldn't lend me money. They said, 'We understand you're famous, Mr. Kojima, but you have no track record.' That's the kind of country Japan is. But then, an executive at the biggest bank turned out to be a huge fan of mine, and he approved the loan.
He's obviously sending his funnels out (a Gundam term for remote attack drones, used here to mean sending his fans out to attack on his behalf).
This was not an amicable split.
Even back with Konami, it wasn't quite this bad.
Basically, Kojikan (a fan nickname for Director Kojima) just gave the fans the order to 'commence firing!' 😁
definitely because the people who played the first one, found it boring, and dropped it just didn't buy the sequel.
The first game's sales were basically riding entirely on the Metal Gear Solid brand's track record,
and that's the part they failed to read.
Doesn't that kind of thing usually build steady sales through word of mouth?
Casting Norman Reedus got people talking, but you can tell how the content landed just by looking at the completion rate.
There's no way a sequel that keeps Norman on board was going to sell.
At the very least, they should've changed the protagonist to make it easier for new players to jump in.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Hideo Kojima went independent from Konami in 2015 and founded Kojima Productions, and Sony has since served as the studio’s exclusive publisher, backing it financially and helping sustain a roughly 200-person studio for nearly a decade. Where the thread’s opinions split was over whether responsibility for the contract termination lies with Sony or with Kojima — the claim that ‘a buyout was offered’ cites no source and remains unconfirmed. The reported sales slump for Death Stranding and the budget overruns and delays on ‘PHYSINT’ come from Bloomberg’s reporting, and no official explanation from Kojima’s side has been confirmed as of this article. The topic can also be read as one example of the broader power dynamic between independent creators and major publishers that’s common across the games industry.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware & Industry (Geha)) thread “[Sad news] Hideo Kojima starts getting bashed on X wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.”
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