Physint’s Reported $400 Million Budget Sparks New Questions About Sony Split

Kojima Productions’ Physint faces a new future under XBOX after Sony reportedly reconsidered its funding and exclusivity terms.

Sony’s decision to cut ties with Kojima Productions on PlayStation is one of the most surprising occurrences in the PlayStation industry. The two had worked together for decades as partners, so the sudden breakup came as a shock. But new sources are shedding more light on the negotiations that eventually led the project to go with XBOX.

On September 9, PlayStation said they are leaving PlayStation but still appreciate Hideo Kojima and his crew. But it said in a statement the decision did not affect the good friendship between the two parties. Soon after, XBOX confirmed that their partnership with Kojima Productions will be expanded to include Physint.

The first complaints say Sony withdrew its sponsorship of the project at a meeting in June. Sony was reluctant to keep spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a game that would not be exclusively available on PlayStation platforms, Bloomberg said. The article also noted that previous Kojima Productions products missed sales predictions while Physint was over budget.

Kojima Productions then responded, asking viewers to take the material with a grain of salt, although they didn't go so far as to publicly deny the claims. Kojima later said he was shocked when Sony backed out of Physint, and no explicit justification for that was given to him. He further stressed that there was no personal animosity between the two sides.

Sony’s negotiations reportedly centered on exclusivity and finance.

The negotiations between Sony and Kojima Productions lasted several months before the deal fell through. But some person disputed the impression that Sony unceremoniously dropped the initiative, saying that the two sides had been talking about it for a long time.

Recent content has been mostly based on the reported budget of Physint. “People were coming up to me at the Tokyo Game Show and saying Kojima Productions was asking for a lot of money to do the project,” the reporter said. But he said the figure was not independently confirmed.

Claiming XBOX was spending $400 million on PlayStation. That sum quickly became a talking point, not least because it would put the project among the most expensive AAA games ever made. For example, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was said to have cost around $300 million, with license payments included.

The widely reported $400 million figure continues to be disputed by other sources.

Reporter warned against taking the $400 million figure at face value, saying there could be numerous figures involved in the negotiations. This might be the original PlayStation deal, the escalating costs of the project, prospective costs for the lead actors, XBOX’s negotiated deal, and the final production cost.

He also highlighted a source with direct knowledge of the XBOX deal who said the company paid Physint far less than the claimed $400 million. Some other insiders had publicly given that were related to the same alleged deal, but he has now been told that XBOX is paying a lot less.

According to the insider, the $400 million figure is what Sony and PlayStation may have been on the hook for had the prior deal remained. It appears that one of the biggest problems between Sony and Kojima Productions was exclusivity. It appears that Sony wanted more control over the distribution of the game in return for continuing to put up major financial backing.

It seems Sony wanted tighter exclusive terms before continuing to support Physint.

Meanwhile, Kojima seemed unlikely to change key parts of the deal. From his words it seems he was blindsided by Sony’s move, especially given Kojima’s years-long history with PlayStation. This project was previously agreed upon when Jim Ryan was the CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Eventually, Kojima Productions would find a new PlayStation partner, that partner being XBOX. However, reports point to this new relationship working with a far smaller budget than the potential amount being discussed under the initial PlayStation deal.

That distinction could be important when Physint ultimately gets off the ground. Although the game would have been left in place with Kojima Productions’ artistic goals, the end product might be quite different from what would have been created under Sony’s planned finance deal.

Fans may speculate what the PlayStation project may have become with Physint’s ultimate version.

There are still a lot of details to be confirmed on the transaction. The conflicting reports on Physint’s budget suggest that the $400 million amount should not be taken as a hard development cost. That number has been contested by several journalists and persons familiar with the negotiations.

It seems that Sony and Kojima Productions failed to come to terms about the future of PlayStation. Apparently exclusivity, budget, and the terms of continued support became big issues. So Sony departed, and XBOX intervened with a new deal.

The biggest unsolved issue now might be what Physint could have looked like under its original PlayStation deal. If the rumors of a significantly larger budget are true, the XBOX version might be a whole different production than initially anticipated.

Until Kojima Productions is more open about the project and its development, though, the details of the divorce will stay undisclosed. Right now, Physint's move from PlayStation to XBOX is a major development in one of the industry's most closely watched creative partnerships.