Sony has stopped funding the Physint game – Kojima’s new partner is Xbox
Sony has canceled production of Physint, a new game by Hideo Kojima developed with PlayStation support. The reasons include missed deadlines, rising budget, financial results of previous Kojima Productions games, and disagreements over exclusivity.
The project itself has not been cancelled. After Sony’s decision, Hideo Kojima spent about three months looking for a new partner, and in September Kojima Productions announced that Xbox would become the publisher of Physint.
Physint missed its schedule and may have significantly exceeded the budget
According to sources familiar with the situation who spoke to journalist Jason Schreier, Physint has already missed several planned deadlines and was on track to significantly exceed its original budget, even though the game is still several years away from release.
Sony was also concerned about the project’s potential profitability. The company, it is reported, did not want to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a game that would not remain a permanent PlayStation exclusive.
This is an important detail: Physint’s issues were not limited to rising development costs. Sony simultaneously evaluated the budget, timeline, expected revenue, and the game’s value for its own platform.
Changes in PlayStation’s approach to overseeing major projects may have also influenced the decision. Following Concord’s failure, the company adopted stricter controls over development timelines and budgets, aiming to identify early on any projects at risk of significantly exceeding their initial scope.
Death Stranding also failed to meet Sony’s financial expectations
Another factor was the results of Kojima Productions’ previous games. Bloomberg sources claim that both Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach failed to meet expected PlayStation revenue targets.
This does not mean the games were necessarily unprofitable or sold poorly. Schreier reports specifically on Sony’s internal revenue expectations, which both parts of Death Stranding failed to meet, according to his sources.
Combined with the increasing budget, Physint made further investments riskier for PlayStation.
Sony notified Kojima Productions of its withdrawal from the project in mid-June 2026. According to Hideo Kojima himself, the decision came as a surprise. Following this, the studio began searching for a new publisher to continue development.
Physint has moved to Xbox
On September 9, Microsoft announced that Xbox will become the new partner of Kojima Productions and publisher of Physint. The companies are already collaborating on the horror game OD, so the new agreement effectively expands the existing partnership.
Xbox and Kojima Productions also plan to collaborate not only in the gaming industry but also in film and television.
Thus, the development of Physint continues. The game is no longer a Sony project, although it was initially created in collaboration with PlayStation and presented specifically as a new partnership between Sony and Hideo Kojima.
What will happen to the Decima engine?
A separate question concerns the technologies used by Kojima Productions. Both parts of Death Stranding were created using the Decima engine, developed by Guerrilla Games, which is part of PlayStation Studios.
Forbes journalist Paul Tassi noted that after the collaboration with Sony ended, the continued use of Decima in Physint is now in question. However, Sony and Kojima Productions have not officially stated that the studio has been cut off from the engine or that Physint is already being migrated to another technology platform.
Therefore, claiming that Sony has taken Decima from Kojima is premature. If the studio indeed needs to switch engines, it may require additional work and impact development timelines, but such consequences remain speculative at this stage.
