4 hours ago
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The facts:
- Hideo Kojima's return to stealth-action, Physint, is no longer a PlayStation joint, and Microsoft picked up the ball.
- It still has big Hollywood talent, with Bill Skarsgård in the lead role.
- That's literally it.
What people are saying:
In a September 21, subscribers-only Tokyo Game Show edition of The Game Business, regarding Physint's original budget:
"There's a lot of chatter around the game's budget. I've heard everything from $300 million to $600 million, although it's $400 million that is the figure that is bandied around the most Tokyo bars (whether Xbox paid that, I don't know). There's also an even wilder rumor circulating across the city around a third Kojima project... I'm not sure I believe that one."
Commenting in a ResetEra thread about Physint's budget:
"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 [$400 million]."
In an article refuting the $400 million figure cited by Dring as the amount Microsoft is paying for Physint:
"I was told similarly by first-hand sources with direct knowledge of the contracts that the figure for PHYSINT is far lower than what is being reported here. It has been suggested to me that the '$400 million' figure is potentially what Sony and PlayStation might've been on the hook for until they cancelled the deal. Xbox and Kojima are building towards their Xbox projects on a 'fraction' of this reported figure.
I'm told Xbox negotiated a deal with Kojima Productions that includes both movie and TV licenses for PHYSINT, and it also included enhanced terms for OD—Kojima's anticipated atmospheric horror game for Xbox."
Alright, so what does that mean?
Looking at the statements of these three, and what rhymes between them, here are my "reasonable confidence" takeaways and observations:
- Both Corden and Schreier's sources suggest Kojima Productions is working on a tighter budget with Microsoft than it was with Sony
- It's unclear how much had already been spent on Physint, and how much of the work on it is transferable—Kojima Productions presumably no longer has access to Sony's proprietary Decima Engine, for example.
- GamesRadar quoted a rumored budget for Death Stranding 2 "somewhere between $150-200 million."
- Insomniac's Spider-Man 2, with a leaked budget of $300 million, is widely agreed to have been an expensive gamble for PlayStation.
- Scooping Kojima was a PR victory for Xbox amid its unpopular, studio-killing "Reset," but its continued financial woes would give them incentive for doing it on the cheap.
- Whether Sony pulling out was a surprise as Kojima says, or preceded by months of negotiations, as alleged by Bloomberg, Kojima would not have been negotiating from a place of strength with Microsoft—his studio's health and employees' livelihoods were on the line.
- None of this strikes me as conducive to making a good videogame under healthy, happy working conditions.
- I really stuck on Schreier's phrasing, "certain A-list actors attached," regarding Physint. The game's first public image of its protagonist looks way more like Robert Pattinson than Bill Skarsgård. Maybe my hopes for Pattinson playing John Physint weren't just projection on my part...
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