Hideo Kojima says Sony's decision to stop funding Physint arrived during a mid-June Zoom call without an explanation, leaving him worried that the loss of a major publishing deal could endanger his independent studio. Xbox has since taken over the action-espionage project, but the switch forced Kojima Productions to keep development alive while it searched for a new partner.
Kojima and studio president Shinji Hirano described the call in a full interview with The Washington Post. Hirano, Kojima and longtime translator Aki Saito attended the meeting. Kojima declined to identify Sony's representative and said the company did not tell them why it was ending support.
A publisher change became a staffing crisis
Kojima's first concern was the studio's roughly 200 employees. He said an independent developer depends on project-by-project publishing agreements, and he feared the company could collapse if it lost Physint's funding. He initially told team leaders that he intended to continue the game and find another publisher, while worrying that employees might leave.
No staff were eliminated, according to Kojima. Some employees moved temporarily to OD, the studio's Xbox-published horror project, while a smaller team stayed on Physint. He also continued revising the concept after the call.
The game had progressed beyond a pitch. Kojima said its plot and concept were written, storyboards were in place, 3D-model work had begun, and actors had been scanned. Kojima Productions separately confirmed Bill Skarsgård as the lead and said costume fittings, scans and camera tests with Skarsgård and Charlee Fraser took place earlier this year. The studio has not selected a final engine or announced a release date.
The reported reasons remain disputed
The Washington Post summarizes Bloomberg's reporting that Sony had concerns about the project's budget, missed deadlines, potential profitability and exclusivity, as well as the commercial performance of the Death Stranding games. Kojima Productions did not offer a different reason for Sony's exit. Instead, it said those claims did not come from official or on-the-record sources and encouraged readers to treat them with skepticism.
The studio's written statement also says Kojima Productions is healthy and profitable, Physint is moving forward with Xbox, and its relationship with PlayStation remains strong. That leaves a clear distinction between the confirmed change and the unresolved explanation: Sony stopped funding the project, but neither company has publicly supplied a reason for the decision.
Kojima said he approached several potential partners before returning to Microsoft, which already had a relationship with the studio through OD. Kojima Productions announced Xbox as Physint's new partner on September 10. Despite the split, Kojima described his relationship with Sony as a decades-long connection rather than a dispute. Physint survives, but its new publisher, unfinished technology choices and lack of a release date show how much of the project remains unsettled.
