BODY: For about 30 years, Hideo Kojima and PlayStation seemed inseparable. That era may now be over. Kojima Productions has announced that PHYSINT, its long-awaited espionage stealth game, will move forward with Xbox instead of PlayStation.
The news broke on September 10, and people immediately asked why Sony would let go of one of gaming's best-known creators. Serkan Toto, CEO of the Tokyo-based consultancy Kantan Games, thinks the answer is sales. "Kojima games have a strong platform marketing halo effect and are not about sales alone," he said, "but it seems the steep drop-off from DS1 to DS2 spooked Sony enough to cut him off."
The drop is big. The original Death Stranding had passed 5 million copies sold by March 2021. Analytics firm Alinea Analytics estimates that Death Stranding 2 has sold about 2.5 million units, roughly half as many. Sony hasn't confirmed that number, but IGN made a similar point: the sequel didn't match or build on the first game's commercial impact.
PHYSINT was first shown as a PlayStation project, and it's still far from finished. In 2025, Kojima said it was five to six years away. After the news broke, he reassured fans that "development is continuing, so please don't worry." Xbox also isn't new territory for the studio. Kojima Productions was already making its horror project OD with Xbox Game Studios.
The insider take
In Japan, Kojima is more than a game director. He's a celebrity with a big following in film and media circles, and fans call him "Kojima-kantoku" (Director Kojima). That makes this move more symbolic at home than it may look overseas. Xbox has only a tiny share of Japan's console market, which PlayStation and Nintendo dominate, so many local fans will see PHYSINT going to Xbox as a Japanese icon drifting away from a Japanese platform. It also adds to a common complaint in Tokyo that PlayStation's focus has moved west. Its headquarters shifted to California years ago, and longtime Kojima ally Shuhei Yoshida left Sony in early 2025. Toto's "halo effect" comment is the key point: Sony may be giving up prestige to protect its bottom line.
Originally reported by γ―γ¦γͺγγγ―γγΌγ― (Japanese).