Physint, the action espionage game Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions announced a couple of years ago, will no longer be published by initial backers PlayStation. Instead, it’ll be published by Xbox, who’re already handing those duties for upcoming Kojima horror flick OD. Sony have tried to paint this switch as an amicable parting of ways with the long-time Metal Gear Solid director’s studio, but Kojima himself has claimed that PlayStation initially informed him they planned to cancel Physint, triggering a three month long hunt for a new publisher to keep the game alive.
“As confirmed earlier through our official channels, in mid-June of this year, we unexpectedly received notice from PlayStation Studios that they would cancel the Physint project,” a post to Kojima’s official English Twitter on the situation read. “Physint is an important project both to me personally and to Kojima Productions. Determined to keep the project alive, we have spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner. In the course of seeking advice and pursuing negotiations with people across many fields, we found in Xbox a partner with whom we share a common vision for the future, and we have decided to team up with them once again. Please rest assured that development of Physint, our genre-defining action-espionage title, is ongoing and will continue moving forward.”
PlayStation, meanwhile, released their own statement on what when down. “After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to step away from collaborating with Kojima Productions on its project Physint,” they wrote. “We continue to have great admiration for Hideo Kojima’s vision for the game. Our relationship remains strong after three decades of industry-leading, genre-defining creative cooperation, and we look forward to continued close collaboration with Hideo Kojima and his award-winning independent studio in the future.”
Not be left out, Xbox have also released a statement cheerleading the move they’ve made.
As much as Microsoft might be parading it as a win, the whole thing strikes me as being more an instance of two behemoths who’ve both had a lot of egg on their faces over the past few years playing hot potato with which games they’re prepared to commit to backing. Sony have been left skittish by a never-ending string of disastrous live service bets, while Microsoft have just conducted mass layoffs and parted ways with a bunch of first party studios in a bid to focus on big series that feel more likely to pull in huge numbers. Kojima’s games seem to arguably be an exception to that rule for the Xbox makers, with OD having been one of the few projects that’ve remained safe from their merciless cuts thus far, and now having a sibling join it under the same roof.
Physint’s jump from one console maker to another does seem like it should up the chances of the game getting a PC port, with Xbox currently less angled against bringing their single player games to other platforms than their competitors in blue. Though, the switch does also mean you’ll now have to take the BDS boycott of Microsoft over their reported ties to the Israeli military into account when deciding whether to pick up Physint.