Studios rarely argue with reporters in public. Kojima Productions just did — politely, at length, and without actually calling anyone a liar.
On September 20, 2026 the studio posted a statement on X responding to a Bloomberg report by Jason Schreier that laid out why PlayStation walked away from PHYSINT, Hideo Kojima’s action-espionage project. The studio’s line was blunt about sourcing: “None of the claims written came from any official or on-the-record source and, as such, we encourage you to take them with a dose of skepticism.”
The reassurance came next, and it is the part that travelled: “While we recognise that the article may have caused alarm, we want to reassure you all, for the record, that the studio is in a healthy, profitable state, development for Physint continues to move forward with Xbox, and our relationship with PlayStation remains strong.”
Kojima Productions explained why it broke its usual silence on speculation at all — the talk about its relationship with PlayStation, the commercial performance of the Death Stranding franchise and production planning for PHYSINT had, in the studio’s words, “reached beyond the studio and have touched our fans, our creative partners, and colleagues we have worked alongside for three decades.”
Read carefully, it is a pushback rather than a denial. Nothing in the statement refutes the specific claims. Bloomberg’s reporting attributed Sony’s exit to a stack of familiar problems: budget and potential profitability, missed deadlines, sales of the Death Stranding games falling short of PlayStation’s revenue expectations, and the awkward fact that Kojima owns the IP, so exclusivity was never guaranteed. Schreier later added on ResetEra that “Sony and Kojima Productions were in negotiations over the future of the game for a while” before the partnership ended.
The context around all this is only days old. Xbox confirmed it would publish PHYSINT, and Kojima Productions posted its own confirmation on September 10, 2026: “Today, we are excited to confirm that our journey with PHYSINT continues with Asha and the team at XBOX,” adding that the deal “expands our relationship with XBOX beyond OD.” A week later, at Tokyo Game Show 2026, Kojima revealed the cast on the Xbox broadcast — Bill Skarsgård in the lead role, with Charlee Fraser, Don Lee and Minami Hamabe alongside him. “I’m delighted to confirm the lead role for PHYSINT will be Bill Skarsgård. We are both long-time fans of each other’s work,” Kojima said.
Kojima himself has been less diplomatic about the surprise than his studio’s PR. Speaking to IGN, he recalled the moment Sony pulled out: “They said they can no longer fund development of Physint. I was shocked, and I said, ‘What did you say?'” He was told in June 2026. He also made a point of not burning the bridge: “I love Sony. And I don’t have any bad feelings against them because I know that it’s a tough time in the game industry.”
Two things can be true at once. A studio can be profitable and stable, and still have spent a summer looking for a publisher.
