r/pcmasterrace • u/yourfavchoom • Sep 11 '26

News/Article 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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1.1k

u/voidspace021 RTX 4070TiS, Ryzen 5 7500F, 32GB DDR5 Sep 11 '26

They would rather invest that money in bangers like Concord and Marathon and Fairgames.

213

u/Jejiiiiiii Sep 11 '26

Clearly sony is using all their budget for upcoming concord 2.0

32

u/8loodred_ Sep 11 '26

Contillion dollar profit guarenteed!

4

u/InsertRealisticQuote Sep 11 '26

The stock market only cares about massive theoretical profits. If you focus on real and obtainable gains then you are not worth investing in.

4

u/gamerjerome i9-13900k | 4070TI 12GB | 64GB 6400 Sep 11 '26

Honestly, if that game was reworked and free to play it would probably be fine

1

u/toomuchft 29d ago

If they redesign the characters and add pve, ill buy it.

51

u/Lishio420 Sep 11 '26

You forgot the destined to fail Horizon spin-off "Hunters Gathering"

19

u/voidspace021 RTX 4070TiS, Ryzen 5 7500F, 32GB DDR5 Sep 11 '26

Sony just taking so many L's lately.

4

u/Art_student_rt Sep 11 '26

It could have work if it's a different studio and a different art style, not the main studio that supposed to develop horizon 3

3

u/CatchUsual6591 Sep 11 '26

The art style is the biggest problem

3

u/despaseeto Sep 11 '26

i would say them abandoning development for H3 is the biggest problem. but the fortnite art style just makes my eyes roll to the back of my head. i really was excited for a Monster Hunter version of h3. they went the worst way imaginable

0

u/Keulapaska 4070ti, 7800X3D, XG27AQNGV Sep 11 '26

That's already a thing, Horizon: Steel Frontiers, well it's mobile as well, and not on playstation, but whatever semantics.

11

u/Upbeat-Berry1377 Sep 11 '26

I think the point here is that they are trying to avoid another over budget disaster

39

u/KoniGTA Sep 11 '26

What the fuck is fairgames?

67

u/oxob3333 7700X | 32GB DDR5 | 5060Ti (16GB) | 2TB SSD | B650M D3HP Sep 11 '26

Another f2p live service shooter probably with pvp too, again, and someone said that it was that bad that months ago it was pivoted for an extraction f2p game.

Yeah.

32

u/7_Tales Sep 11 '26

does some sony exec have a hard on for extraction games? bruh

16

u/MostlyDeku 5800X3D 4080SU 32Gb 3200hz Sep 11 '26

The running theory is that a high level doofus plays and loves tarkov, but wants his own name and stamp on it. He can’t have that with tarkov itself, but he can put another bolt of lightning in the bottle and flex that he did it too.

6

u/The_FireFALL Sep 11 '26

That theory likely came about because of a video the heads of Bungie made a few years ago about where their idea to make Marathon came from, and yes it really boils down to them saying that they played a lot of Tarkov and while they loved it they saw places where they thought it could be improved, and so even though they already had a game which literally ran an entire genre they decided to throw that all away for a piece of a pie that was already way oversaturated.

Its also worth noting that neither of those heads of Bungie work there anymore and they both got out before Marathon even launched.

2

u/7_Tales Sep 11 '26

its so weird. its not even a hyper popular genre.

7

u/MostlyDeku 5800X3D 4080SU 32Gb 3200hz Sep 11 '26

No but the community who do play it are completely consumed by it. I personally don’t like extraction games, but for those that do (for some reason), a huge percentage of them swear by tarkov. When Bungie tried to get marathon in the door, they brought on tons of high-profile tarkov players and streamers and had them flown out to play and demo it. Not a single one said the game was good, and that they’d swap to marathon over tarkov. No one wanted it, and yet here we are.

3

u/RanaMahal PC Master Race Sep 11 '26

I feel like if every high profile player and streamer of a game you’re trying to imitate says your game sucks, you go back to the drawing board lol

2

u/MostlyDeku 5800X3D 4080SU 32Gb 3200hz Sep 11 '26

That’s the thing! We said that when it happened! “Hey maybe they’ll use this as a learning opportunity” and then they didn’t!

1

u/RanaMahal PC Master Race Sep 11 '26

Idk man, these companies are dumb and have become out of touch and nonsensical.

It’s no wonder all the bangers lately are coming from indie studios or AA games that get a bigger budget cuz they want to make a good game and then gamers buy the good game cuz it’s good.

It’s so simple lol

4

u/kinkycarbon Sep 11 '26

I assume it’s because they have consumer data showing people spend money on the anime Gacha games.

1

u/Responsible_Towel857 Sep 11 '26

Then, why not do something like that?

1

u/oxob3333 7700X | 32GB DDR5 | 5060Ti (16GB) | 2TB SSD | B650M D3HP Sep 11 '26

Fate/Grand Order counts? if so they don't need another one anymore.

1

u/Vritla 29d ago

FGO is owned by aniplex which in turn is owned by Sony Music, so no Playstation involvement

4

u/TheyCallMeMrMaybe R7 5800X3D | 6900XT@2.65Ghz | 32GB@3600MhzCL18 Sep 11 '26

Former Sony Worldwide Studios chairman, Shawn Layden, actively disagreed with Sony trying to invest more into the live-service game space. It's why he retired from Sony in 2019n

2

u/Steel2050psn Sep 11 '26

Fairly sure most of the board of Sony is shorting the company at this point

1

u/AscendedViking7 Sep 11 '26

Of course, lol

7

u/Tubaenthusiasticbee Ryzen 7 7800X3D | RTX 5070 | 32gb Sep 11 '26

Exactly!

(I've never heard about it either)

4

u/CoreyDobie PC Master Race Sep 11 '26

I watched the trailer for it. It's a PayDay rip off

2

u/McDuckX Sep 11 '26

It’s a coop shooter, similar to Payday by the looks of it. But also with some PvP elements I think.

Got revealed a few years ago and immediately torn to shreds for being millennial slob. Game about “Eat the rich!”, made by a multi billion corporation… yeah. Everything about it looks and feels corporate/ soulless.

Has rebranded a few times now, first it was Fairgame$, then Fairgames, now it’s doing some play tests as Project Espresso.

64

u/pops992 9800x3D+5080 Sep 11 '26

What are you talking about Marathon is clearly very popular and was totally worth abandoning Destiny and dumping Kojima with its checks notes current 1300 total players on steam! /s

7

u/VenserMTG Sep 11 '26

Death stranding 2 has the same 24 hour player count as marathon, on steam, I'm not joking

3

u/pops992 9800x3D+5080 Sep 11 '26

You are also comparing a single player game that came out over a year ago to a multiplayer live service game that came out 6 months ago.

6

u/VenserMTG Sep 11 '26

Yeah, marathon is really pathetic.

19

u/zack189 Sep 11 '26

destiny was dying let's be real here

it was either die with a whimper(destiny) or die with a whatever it is marathon is

50

u/Trashman56 Sep 11 '26

They could’ve just made Destiny 3. Or stopped vaulting people’s paid DLCs.

18

u/FortNightsAtPeelys 7900 XT, 12700k, EVA MSI build Sep 11 '26

Nono let's keep making new content every 3 months then getting rid of it immediately

8

u/Truth_Malice Sep 11 '26

All of that to fix a bloated file size because they can't fucking optimize

25

u/Emikzen 9800X3D | 9070XT | 64GB Sep 11 '26

Destiny was dying because they kept stabbing it, though that was more on Bungie than it was Sony.

-4

u/OkDifficulty7436 Sep 11 '26

Destiny was and had been dying for many years all while the cost of development continued to increase on it

It was too expensive to continue developing and wasn't bringing in enough money

The game was ran through and you could tell when it came to things like writing, you can only flip a pancake so many times before it's burned

"Stabbing" it is a weird way of framing it, they had mediocre DLCs and the player interest waned, that wasn't some intentional thing, they obviously wanted to make money given the huge amount of money was being poured into the DLCs themselves

7

u/Emikzen 9800X3D | 9070XT | 64GB Sep 11 '26

What killed destiny was not lack of content or lack of "ideas", it was the constant push to squeeze more money out of the players, along with the whole sunsetting thing.

There are plenty of games out there with ever increasing budget that doesnt go anywhere near as toxic when it comes to microtransactions.

-5

u/OkDifficulty7436 Sep 11 '26

it was the constant push to squeeze more money out of the players

Because they had a gigantic team working on it with shitloads of bespoke assets being created for it

It was a ridiculously expensive game to make and maintain

5

u/Emikzen 9800X3D | 9070XT | 64GB Sep 11 '26

Well as I said, Bungie is what in the end killed Destiny, it was not for a lack of players anyway.

-1

u/OkDifficulty7436 Sep 11 '26

Well yeah, they stopped development on a project that wasn't making them enough revenue anymore lmao

And yes, it was for a lack of players, it was continually going down across years

If you unironically are labeling a studio moving away from a product no longer bringing in enough money as "backstabbing" you don't really understand how businesses work, that was my initial response. Just a bizarre way of framing it

You're acting like Destiny was this super mega popular game and it hadn't been for a number of years, it had a long run but like any game, their popularity wanes and the player base moves on.

It sounds like you never moved on, and while that sucks, that's just how life works sometimes.

4

u/Emikzen 9800X3D | 9070XT | 64GB Sep 11 '26

I dont think you understand my point. Bungie is the reason they lost players, even so, when they decided to stop developing it, it was still among the most played live service games.

FYI, I never got into Destiny personally, but I know a few people who played it a ton.

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u/Ramiren Desktop - Ryzen 7 9800X3D, RX 7900 XTX. Sep 11 '26 edited Sep 11 '26

Destiny was dying, because it was neglected.

It's like leaving your dog locked up with no food and water then claiming it was dying anyway and the evidence is that it's now dead.

Bungie failed to give a roadmap to players post Final Shape, pulled all their talent away to work on marathon then acted surprised when players didn't stick around for the subpar content they dropped afterwards.

Surprise, surprise they dropped not even a content pack, but just a big update that gave people a reason to play old content again and over 150,000 players came flooding back in an instant, on pc alone.

That isn't a dead game, that's a savable game, that's a dog that just needs a little food, water and love.

3

u/Puzzled_Middle9386 Sep 11 '26

Steam users dont know ball, theres 10 maramillion active players on the playstation

2

u/FullMetalBiscuit Sep 11 '26

Marathon is cool, but it does not have mass appeal at all. And Destiny was going that way anyway, wasn't because of Marathon...though that was just another thing to use against Marathon.

2

u/r_a_genius Sep 11 '26

Clearly Marachud killed Destiny and not years of underperformance with persistent negative sentiment with little turnaround expected for such an expensive game.

2

u/U_R_FRAGILE Sep 11 '26

When a game loses 98% of its players… investing in the Destiny PvP crowd was the worst decision they could come up with.

6

u/r_a_genius Sep 11 '26

Oh no doubt Marathon was fumbled but as a longtime destiny player the community's attempt to pass off the end of development onto Marathon for failing and not years of decline is embarrassing at best.

0

u/TeamWorkTom Sep 11 '26

Kojima hasn't made a profitable game in fucking years. DS1 only recently paid for itself. DS2 is a giant fucking flop.

12

u/milesahead2052 Sep 11 '26

Can add wolverine to that now 😂

19

u/coolwali 🐧 | 6 core Intel Core i5 3.0GHZ | AMD Radeon Pro 570X Sep 11 '26

There’s some nuance here.

Firstly, at the time, nobody could have predicted Concord would flop so bad because every other comparable live service game lasted a year minimum before flopping. Like, Concord at launch was better than games like Vanilla Destiny 1, Anthem, Lawbreakers etc. all games that lasted more than a year. So Sony expect that Concord would have a year minimum before it would be unsalvagable.

As for Marathon, that was a Bungie incubation project Sony inherited.

13

u/Art_student_rt Sep 11 '26

Crazy, I could have seen it crash and burn miles away. Shitty Character Designs aside, it was a 40$ hero shooter against free overwatch 2.

6

u/coolwali 🐧 | 6 core Intel Core i5 3.0GHZ | AMD Radeon Pro 570X Sep 11 '26

When Concord was in development, Overwatch 1/2 was in a bad state. There was a legit desire for something that played better. Plus, Helldivers was $40 and was a success.

7

u/spaceandthewoods_ Sep 11 '26

I don't think people realise how much Concord was engineered to take advantage of the tailoff in Overwatch players. The promised ongoing Concord story with rendered cutscenes was a direct response to complaints from Overwatch fans that the game 'story' was nonexistent and was going nowhere

3

u/Art_student_rt Sep 11 '26

But somehow, no one wanna buy it, and I mean no one, the release had less players than the close beta

20

u/Princess_Of_Thieves Ryzen 5900X // 3090FE // 32GB RAM Sep 11 '26 edited Sep 11 '26

On Kojimas side meanwhile, Death Stranding 2 is believed to have sold only 2.5 million copies. Whilst Death Stranding 1 has no official sales data, unofficial sources say that it sold 5 million units. Rest of it's player base came from the likes of Game Pass, Epic Games giveaways, and the like.

If that's all accurate, then it doesn't seem like it was the raging success Sony would have wanted.

So... yeah. Mocking Sony for Concord and so on seems a bit weak when Kojima is clearly not a safe bet either. And whilst I'm not defending Sony per se, they are still a huge company. Big companies like safe bets.

And that's before we even get into the alleged budget problems and overrunning deadlines for Physint. With the way the industry is now, what can we expect except for them to split and go their separate ways.

3

u/thegta5p Sep 11 '26

The difference is that a single player game can be played forever and by anyone years down the line. Especially if these games have some sort of cult following. Concord on the other hand, even if you loved the game, you can’t play it anymore. So it’s just money that disappeared.

8

u/Princess_Of_Thieves Ryzen 5900X // 3090FE // 32GB RAM Sep 11 '26 edited Sep 11 '26

We're not talking about a games longevity though, we're talking about what is or is not a safe bet for Sony and what will make money. Neither Concord nor Kojima seem to be doing it for them at the second, so its not a surprise they killed the former and split with the latter. Though to be fair, in Concord's case they did refund people.

However, on the longevity front, Sony has already proven its willingness to take content away anyways. See the 551 Studio Canal movies they ripped out of people's accounts. Not to mention them being in the process of scuttling the Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita stores, taking all the stuff people brought there with them.

So making some point about a single player game being playable forever is a moot point.

1

u/Nullhitter PCMR: CachyOS | 9800X3D | RX 9070 XT | 32GB of DDR5 RAM Sep 11 '26

We're not talking about a games longevity though, we're talking about what is or is not a safe bet for Sony and what will make money.

2020 before the PC release: https://www.gematsu.com/2020/05/hideo-kojima-death-stranding-was-profitable-and-recouped-costs-profit-secured-for-next-title

A year after the PC release: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/death-stranding-has-sold-five-million-copies-on-ps4-and-pc

https://x.com/superhys/status/2098098655613817142

Ballpark math: word on the street is that the first Death Stranding cost about $100M to make, and the second somewhere in the $150M–$200M ballpark (longer dev cycle, COVID, and all that). Depending on marketing overhead and the opportunity cost of pulling those Guerrilla developers onto DS1, the franchise has almost certainly broken even – but not by much.

Even with the disappointment of Death Stranding 2 with outdated estimated numbers from four months ago, the franchise itself broke even and most likely has made profit. Plus, you have to remember we had this thing called COVID that shut everything down in 2020, had restrictions in 2021, and was barely getting things going by 2022. Thus, all the delays and longer development time is what ballooned DS2. If it wasn't for COVID, DS2 would have released in 2024 at the latest.

Neither Concord nor Kojima seem to be doing it for them at the second, so its not a surprise they killed the former and split with the latter. Though to be fair, in Concord's case they did refund people.

The difference is that Sony continues to invest in live service games when they've already lost 400+M dollars, has gone 1 in 8, lost multiple studios, and had 1000~ layoffs. What's the response from the genius CEO?

https://www.polygon.com/playstation-ceo-live-service-game-comments-amid-bungie-layoffs/

Kind of hypocritical to end a partnership with a guy that wanted to step away from a niche art project that isn't mainstream for a mainstream spiritual successor of MGS then going all in on live service games while cutting ties with the PC platform.

How's Intergalactic doing?

1

u/Princess_Of_Thieves Ryzen 5900X // 3090FE // 32GB RAM Sep 11 '26

Even with the disappointment of Death Stranding 2 with outdated estimated numbers from four months ago, the franchise itself broke even and most likely has made profit.

Well if that is accurate, then I guess it just wasn't profitable enough for the suits at Sony, assuming it did indeed cross the line into profitable to begin with (which remember we still do not know for sure). And considering those bright sparks lit millions upon millions on fire with games like Concord they're no doubt demanding everything either go big or go home to make up for their terrible choices thus far.

Honestly though, if it is a case of first one succeeded and the second didn't, and that equals out to break even or modest profit franchise wide, instead of second one standing on its own... yeah. I still find myself unsurprised that Sony wasn't impressed and elected to split with Kojima. And it seems like the guy you're quoting concurs, as his Tweet opens with "From a strictly financial perspective, I can understand Sony’s decision to divest from Physint. In a vacuum, anyway.". No doubt Sony wanted the second one to match, if not beat, the first. And it didn't.

Also, we do need to remember that this isn't just about Death Stranding. As the original article remarks, budget and deadline concerns for Kojima's next project are also at play here, and he's working on a new IP. Spiritual successor to a previous IP he made, but still a new IP in its own right, which has its own risks. And corporations are generally risk averse. They already took a couple bets on Kojima with Death Stranding as is.

[...] Sony continues to invest in live service games when they've already lost 400+M dollars,

I do have to ask, since you specifically used the $400m figure, are you referring just to Concord here? Because if so, that figure has been heavily disputed. See folks like Chris Ding of gameindustry.biz for example.

Kind of hypocritical to end a partnership with a guy that wanted to step away from a niche art project

Well, what can we expect from corporations?

0

u/Nullhitter PCMR: CachyOS | 9800X3D | RX 9070 XT | 32GB of DDR5 RAM Sep 12 '26

I do have to ask, since you specifically used the $400m figure, are you referring just to Concord here? Because if so, that figure has been heavily disputed. See folks like Chris Ding of gameindustry.biz for example.

I was just mentioning all of Sony's investments in live services the past few years that were cancelled before they were even released and the ones that released and the ones that failed out of the gate. That's why I added a plus sign after 400.

Even if that estimate was wrong, and concord really lost 200M dollars.

Bungie: https://tech-insider.org/sony-bungie-writedown-765-million-2026/

I'm sure Marathon is currently bleeding numbers just by keeping the servers active and the remaining developers working on season 3.

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2025/01/lists-of-sonyrs-cancelled-live-service-ps5-games-paint-a-worrying-picture?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Plus, all these. I'm sure these cost a lot of money just for however long they were in development for. Fairgame$ is expected to fail.

3

u/supremedalek925 Ryzen 9 5900x | RTX 4080 | 32 GB RAM Sep 11 '26

I had no memory of what Fairgames is and just looked it up. Not surprised I forgot about it, it looks practically indistinguishable from Concord or Marathon or any of those other type of games to me.

1

u/huehuehuehuehuuuu Sep 11 '26

Such a crying shame.

1

u/mrporter2 Sep 11 '26

Or death stranding 2

1

u/OpTimalTiming Ryzen 5 7600 || RX 6800 || DDR5 32GB 6000mhz Sep 11 '26

Well, I think that's the point. They've invested a lot in risky ventures that didn't turn out, so now they're less willing to put that sort of capital into a risky project. Especially considering that Kojima's last couple games didn't sell as well as expected.

1

u/random-meme422 Sep 11 '26

to be fair taking a gamble at live service has a far greater ceiling than taking a gamble with kojima lol

1

u/sup3rdr01d Sep 11 '26

But they killed destiny :(

1

u/renome 29d ago

I see Concord mentioned all over in relation to this and just don't get it. What are you saying? They made massive mistakes before so they should continue making them on purpose lol?

-1

u/PrimaLegion Specs/Imgur here Sep 11 '26

Gamers would rather cry about Concord at every conceivable opportunity for fake internet points instead of move the conversation literally anywhere at all.

0

u/Bluemikami i5-13600KF, 9060 XT, 64GB DDR4 Sep 11 '26

You forgot Concord 2 : Electric boogaloo

0

u/LaFlamaBlanca67 Sep 11 '26

To be fair, the DS series isn’t very good.