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The story
According to a report from the overseas outlet The Game Business, Hideo Kojima’s upcoming title Physint reportedly had a development budget of around $400 million during its time under contract with Sony. Journalist Jason Schreier adds that this figure appears to correspond to the PlayStation-era deal, and that the subsequent Xbox contract is believed to be for a significantly smaller amount. On 5ch, reactions split over whether this number represented “the total spent so far” or “the budget allocated going forward,” while users also debated the timing of unflattering Kojima-related information surfacing right after his split from Sony, as well as the overall reliability of the report.
What people said
Jason Schreier notes that this figure likely corresponds to the PlayStation contract, and that Xbox is believed to have signed on for the project at a significantly lower amount.
It's not like $400 million has already been spent so far, lol
Bet Asha's glaring right at him.
If anything, they'd already started filming with the actors, and there's been no word of a change since, so it's probably staying as-is.
That'll be the media division of the Sony Defense Force [Note: internet slang for fans/PR reflexively defending a brand] deploying. They'll never forgive Kojima specifically for piling on during the disc-drive backlash. Fun to watch from the sidelines, honestly.
Japanese publishers reek of the same thing as Famitsu [Note: major Japanese gaming magazine] — throwing money around — and like Johnny's [Note: the talent agency notorious for freezing out press who cross it], threatening to cut off access if you write anything critical. So you only ever get flattering coverage… until someone's on the way down, and suddenly everything comes out.
Schreier the 'liar' strikes again [Note: pun — 'Schreier' (シュライアー) sounds like 'liar' (ライアー) when read in Japanese].
Is this a joke?
The problem is that $400 million wasn't even enough.
The contract was for making a career-culminating magnum opus in exactly that production style from the very start, so of course it doesn't make sense any other way.
Sounds like the overseas Xbox Defense Force and the 'No Disc, No Buy' crowd are ramping up their attacks on Schreier, so this is going to turn into a mudslinging match. Which means the Sony/console bashing that's been going on since the disc-drive removal isn't going to die down anytime soon. Rockstar's probably catching unwanted heat from all this too.
Wouldn't they lose the rights to all the code and mocap data made so far — heck, even the Physint title itself?
Sony's presumably going to sue them over this.
Microsoft will just pay for it instead.
If Sony's the one who terminated the deal, refusing to hand over the existing records would presumably be illegal. If that's the case, Kojima Productions would have grounds to push back hard, but thinking about future business, the studio probably wants to keep things amicable.
Sony cut the ad spend that used to let them hog basically the whole first half of TGA, so they presumably didn't get any special treatment for Death Stranding 2 last year. Once you stop funding outlets like this, Sony's influence is only going to keep fading.
They probably never imagined they'd become the scapegoat for the whole disc-drive removal thing. Well, I guess if you're doing business with PlayStation, you're not really allowed to complain.
If Rockstar ever turns on them too, they'll get the same treatment as Kojima. Once you're doing business with Sony, you're all in the same boat.
Makes me increasingly curious about the actual distance between Nintendo and Sony on the Zelda movie. Given the funding split, Nintendo should theoretically have full say over the promo schedule — but will they, really?
Do that and you'd tank sales, defeating the whole purpose.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/hideo-kojimas-physint-reportedly-has-a-400-million-budget/ar-AA2d3crD
Yeah, no way you can make anything on 600 million yen [~$4M].
It's $400 million. That's $400M, not $4M.
He's definitely using celebrities to add prestige to himself, so that's probably part of it. The rest depends on how the game actually turns out, but unlike film, the games industry grades on a curve and real criticism barely functions, which is exactly why he can get away with this.
In the US, combined PS5/Xbox Series S hardware sales for the week ending August 29 rose 14% week-over-week.
PS5 was up 17%, Xbox Series S up 9%.
Combined, that's fewer than 8,000 extra units.
'Most people who want a PS5 have already bought one.'
bsky.app/profile/matpiscatella.bsky.social/post/3mv4jqoo5w22p
GTA6 looks like it's going to flop way harder than expected.
Sure hope so! Though this is as dumb as saying GTA5 flopped based on PS3 sales.
Did he lie to Sony, Kojima?
The whole idea that the Microsoft deal is worth less than Sony's is just Jason Schreier's speculation to begin with.
Wait, was that just for the planning stage, lol?
It's just the budget figure — it's not like they've actually poured in that much so far.
Though isn't the dev team just way too big?? What's the deal there?
Plus all the film-actor salaries on top?
Background and Key Talking Points
Physint is the title Hideo Kojima has been developing under contract with Sony since founding Kojima Productions, and it’s since been reported that the project is moving to Microsoft (Xbox). The source here is the overseas outlet The Game Business, with journalist Jason Schreier adding the note that “the roughly $400 million figure appears to correspond to the Sony contract, and the Xbox side is believed to have signed on for a significantly smaller amount.” The thread split mainly over two points. First, whether the $400 million represents the “total development budget” or “the amount already spent so far” — replies #3, #90, and #92 flag this as a simple misreading to watch out for. Second, whether the Xbox deal really was smaller than Sony’s: reply #104 points out this is nothing more than Schreier’s own speculation, meaning takes like #82’s “did Kojima lie to Sony?” remain unsubstantiated guesswork. One easy point of confusion for readers is that the reported figure of “$400 million” got mixed up in places with “$4 million” (replies #59, #62, #64) — the correct scale is $400 million (roughly ¥60 billion).
*This article is compiled from excerpts and summaries of the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, aka “Gehan” [Note: ゲハ, a 5ch board dedicated to console-war-style gaming industry threads]) thread “[Kojima] Physint reportedly had a roughly $400 million budget during its PlayStation era.”
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