Xbox Allegedly Paying a ‘Fraction’ of the $400 Million Budget Kojima Is Rumoured to Have Quoted Sony for Physint

Update #3 []:

This story continues to develop with many incongruent parts.

Jez Corden of Windows Central says Microsoft is absolutely not paying $400 million to fund Physint, although he concedes this may have potentially been the sum Hideo Kojima requested from Sony.

According to his “first-hand sources”, Xbox is paying a “fraction” of this reported figure for the auteur’s latest game.

In the last hour, The Game Business’ Dring has clarified that he’s since heard Microsoft is paying “quite a bit less” than the figures allegedly quoted to Sony.

My questions here, then, are many: is it true Kojima was asking for $400 million from Sony? Why weren’t the two parties able to settle on a lower budget? And if Microsoft is committing a “fraction” of the rumoured figure, is it even going to be the same game anymore?

It’ll be interesting to see if we get any answers to these.

Update #2 []: Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier has now chimed in on this.

While he doesn’t confirm or deny Chris Dring’s reporting from The Game Business, reading between the lines it sounds like Hideo Kojima may have wanted $400 million for Physint from Sony.

According to Schreier, one source at Xbox told him Microsoft is paying “significantly less” than that.

Here’s what he wrote on ResetEra:

“I am hesitant to get into exact numbers without seeing documentation or corroborating them with multiple firsthand sources, as always.

And there are a lot of different numbers here. There’s the number Physint was originally signed for at PlayStation, the number it was approaching, the number that came up during negotiations, the number it would have been with certain A-list actors attached, the number that Xbox agreed to, and the number it will actually cost by the time it comes out.

All that said, someone at Xbox with firsthand knowledge of the deal told me that they signed Physint for significantly less than this.”

So we’re probably never going to get a precise answer on this, but I think the takeaway is that Physint was going to cost Sony a lot of money without any promise of exclusivity or IP ownership.

Microsoft’s version of the game may have a significantly smaller budget than what was originally planned.

Update #1 []:

Earlier this week, Jason Schreier hinted at rumours regarding the budget for Hideo Kojima’s Physint, which Sony ultimately decided to cancel.

A report from The Game Business claims new publisher Xbox is stumping up about $400 million for the game, which is on the very upper-end of AAA game development costs.

Titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, for example – developed by Insomniac in the US – cost around $300 million to make. This includes a hearty licensing fee to Disney, however.

Schreier suggested that Microsoft may actually be paying less for Physint than Kojima requested from Sony, so it’s possible he was asking for even more money from the Japanese giant. It’s unclear whether this includes all of the cross-media aspects as well, though.

As a reminder, Kojima was insisting on timed exclusivity and full ownership of the IP, despite these robust budget requests.

If true, I can understand why Sony walked away.

Original Story: It sounds like Hideo Kojima was demanding a significant sum of money from Sony to make the stealth action game Physint – despite him retaining ownership of its IP and intending to release it on multiple platforms.

PlayStation announced earlier this month that it had pulled out of the project, which was first announced in 2024.

Xbox has since picked up the game, which will star Bill Skarsgard in its lead role. Development is still early, with Kojima unsure on which engine to use now that Guerrilla’s proprietary Decima appears to be out of the equation.

The game has since been picked up by Xbox, which was seen as a big PR win among gamers.

But reporting from Bloomberg’s reliable Jason Schreier suggested Sony was concerned about the project’s progress, its cost, and Kojima’s reluctance to commit to exclusivity under the circumstances.

Schreier also said that key PlayStation executives who signed the original deal, like Jim Ryan, have since retired.

Kojima Productions pushed back on these claims in a statement last week, encouraging fans to approach them with a “dose of scepticism”.

In a new video, Schreier says that negotiations between Sony and the Japanese studio had been taking place for months, with a focus on the “future of the project, about the budget of the project, about the timeline, about extensions, about exclusivity, and ultimately it didn’t lead to a satisfying result”.

The journalist added:

“By the way, while I was in Japan, several people came up to me while I was around Tokyo Game Show and various TGS parties and said, ‘Have you heard how much Kojima was asking for [to make] Physint?’ The rumoured number I have not confirmed but it was pretty significant.

That said, it doesn’t mean Xbox was willing to pay that much, and in fact I think Xbox is paying less than Kojima had been asking for from PlayStation.”

It’s all interesting information from Schreier that does help to contextualise and justify Sony’s decision here.

While the optics have undoubtedly been bad for PlayStation, it does seem like Physint was going to be an extremely expensive endeavour – especially when you consider the platform holder would own nothing, and the game would be free to release elsewhere after a period of timed console exclusivity.

It doesn’t sound like a particularly great deal for Sony, regardless of how influential Kojima is.