Bloomberg reporting by Jason Schreier on September 11, 2026, citing people familiar with the project, fills in why Sony Interactive Entertainment stepped away from publishing Kojima Productions’ stealth action game PHYSINT — a move Xbox already confirmed when it took over publishing. This desk is filing a follow on the budget and exclusivity reporting, not a redo of the publisher handoff itself.
According to the Bloomberg account as wrapped by Gematsu, Sony’s exit turned on concerns over budget, potential profitability, and exclusivity. Sources told Bloomberg that Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach — both published by SIE — did not meet PlayStation’s revenue expectations. PHYSINT itself has reportedly missed deadlines and was on track to be “well over budget” even though it remains years from release.
The same sourcing says SIE was reluctant to put “hundreds of million of dollars” into another title that would not stay exclusive to PlayStation hardware. Death Stranding and its sequel were timed exclusives that later shipped on other platforms, and like those games the PHYSINT IP sits with Kojima Productions. Bloomberg’s sources also note that many Sony executives who had close relationships with Hideo Kojima have left the company in recent years.
On the Xbox side, people familiar with the company’s strategy told Bloomberg it saw PHYSINT as a strong bet in part because Xbox plans to publish on both Xbox and PC. An Xbox spokesperson said: “Betting on Kojima-san is an easy call. We believe in his team’s ability to build AAA games with groundbreaking, new [intellectual property] and we believe in OD, Physint, and our growing partnership.”
For the earlier, official publisher-shift story — Xbox Wire plus PlayStation and Kojima statements that SIE stepped away and Xbox expanded its KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS partnership beyond OD — see our live report Xbox Takes Over PHYSINT After PlayStation Steps Away.
What we are not saying: these budget, deadline, and Death Stranding revenue claims are Bloomberg anonymous sourcing, not a first-party PlayStation postmortem. We are not inventing audited sales figures for Death Stranding, a PHYSINT street date, or a claim that Xbox has locked permanent exclusivity.
