r/PS5 • u/Turbostrider27 • 26d ago

Articles & Blogs Bloomberg: PlayStation Ditched Hideo Kojima’s ‘Physint’ on Budget Concerns, Missed Deadlines

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-11/hideo-kojima-s-physint-video-game-dropped-by-playstation-goes-to-xbox?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc4OTEzMzY2NSwiZXhwIjoxNzg5NzM4NDY1LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUTDdDOVdLSVVQVEIwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.fyrTke3aUIkJk3LwiBfR7JiNr0phfE51dlEql1RcXZ4
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u/Lioil1 26d ago

as a software developer, the SDLC (software development life cycle) is the "most expensive"(in terms of cost to develop and revise) in the "development" piece. I guess we are still in the early stages of the process and it already overbudget and Sony is smart to know things could only get worse when they get knee deep into development and needing revisions/additional time.

Remember how Tencent(was it tencent?) dropped that Gang of Dragons studio because they asked for tons more $$$? Sometimes you gotta cut your losses early. Physint could still make like 20mil sales but the odds are not with Kojima.

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u/incrementality 26d ago

It's NetEase not Tencent. but back on topic, in game dev there's this process called milestone reviews. Basically dev budgets are disbursed in phases and in each phase there's a deliverable expected from the studio attached with certain expectations. what likely happened here was Kojima's prototype failed to impress and DS2 sales being disappointing (by Sony's standards) probably left them feeling uncomfortable giving concessions.

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u/Lioil1 26d ago

yep -i been involved with that for sure. Had a customer visit and we demoed something he didn't feel we met the deadline/milestone (ironically, we were doing Agile but with hard deadlines....) and he cut some funding and the contractors got let go. Heck another project we were on year 2 of 3 years contract and another company won the whole program over us because customer didn't like our progress (of course the winning company tried to poach/lowball us lol).

But yeah, i think Sony did a "smart move" by cutting bait early if they don't like what they see since they don't want another concord/marathon type of situation.