Severing your relationship with a generation-defining artist because they had one whiff that only brought in $140,000,000+ in revenue seems shortsighted, even if they actually did lose money on that entry. About what I would expect from the MBA-driven economy, though. Golden goose has shit out 10 golden eggs for you, then it lays one regular egg and you try to kill it. Except you fail and somebody else gets your goose instead.
Really odd indeed, many of the Sony executives used to be relatively "It's OK to fail once, you've proven you can output stuff given resources", but seemingly there is a new Sony now where cutting costs and not doing bets isn't part of the culture anymore. Sad to see.
Kojima has a history of overspending by trying to make grandiose but weird games. And while they performed well, MGS4 sold less then The Last of Us or other big hits. I think that Kojima's games are games that people talk about more than they play. Probably MGS5 is the only one that actually "plays good".
Back then gaming wasn't as big as it is today. It does make sense to have TLOU outsold MGS4, they have 5 years gap, it is more than a decade later for both games now. I think we need to talk about percentage impacts rather than absolute numbers.
But how many of those games are console shifters? Hell back in the day I finally caved and bought a PS3 because of MGS4. Alright it may only shift say, 60% of the units, but if more of those units included a console purchase too then the onward value is huge.
Sony also presumably has a lot of visibility into the project, and it was already being framed as "genre-defining." I've loved various Kojima games but especially with the other exclusives line-up that Sony has, I can understand this is just too much risk for them.
It remains to be seen what egg will be laid in this case, how many golden ones may come after, and how many end up on Playstation anyway.
Kojima is infamous for being difficult to work with as well as expensive, and Death Stranding 2 didn't do that well after the already-divisive Death Stranding. I think describing him as a generation-defining artist is a bit much, something a devoted fan might say. His mistreatment of David Hayter because David isn't an A-list Hollywood actor really soured my view of him. By all accounts, Kojima has a fantasy of being a Hollywood director and hanging out with movie stars, and he wants to make gigantic expensive Hollywood movie-esque projects. I'm not surprised Sony would get cold feet.
I got Death Stranding on a Steam sale, was thrilled to play my first Hideo Kojima game, but couldn't finish it; so I understand why it has little appeal to some people.
Some of the many game mechanics I didn't enjoy at all:
- Holding still and holding your breath until.
- Having to calm your technobaby or they will have a nervous breakdown.
- Constantly tilting your weight left and right so your packages don't fall.
- Slowly walking everywhere, because your packages will fall if you're not careful.
I don't know it it gets better after 20 hours, I couldn't reconcile my need for entertainment against knowing 80% of those hours were spent walking and balancing my stack of packages. I'll still try another of his games, but likely not DS 2.
I mean every time that Kojima made a game it turned out to be something that people talk about for years on. But the second it gets slightly more ambitious investors get their panties in the knot about it even though throughout history Kojima's products made a massive return. This split will also, in my opinion, lead to Kojima losing access to Decima engine, which sucks in a whole different way.
How did it break ground exactly? I like MGS 1,2 and 3. I saw nothing particularly interesting about Death Stranding. I've seen friends playing it and still didn't really look that interesting.
He didn't really want to make MGS4 and MGS5 and then still made successful games. Death Stranding franchise is one of the "games that he is well known for" and it is most def not 20+ years old. Dont see your point.
> He didn't really want to make MGS4 and MGS5 and then still made successful games
MGS4 and MGS5 were successful but I don't think they were really that good. I am not alone when it comes to that.
The vast majority of praise goes to MGS2 and 3 these days.
> Death Stranding franchise is one of the "games that he is well known for" and it is most def not 20+ years old.
It isn't nearly as well respected as MGS1-3.
> Dont see your point.
The point is that Kojima work these days isn't nearly as much of a draw as it once was. If fans of the original MGS games like myself aren't that interested in his newer stuff that says quite a lot.
To add on to what you're saying: he didn't really want to make MGS3 either. I believe he said in a Game Informer interview from 2001 that he wanted 2 to be the final chapter. I might be getting my source wrong.
In the case of MGS4 and MGS5, because they're weirdly horny... Like, MGS5 was a good game, but you can't tell me that Kojima doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about bikini clad snipers.
I was top 1000 for a while in the base-invasion mode of MGSV in the EU. That mode was basically a low-budget little tacked-on multiplayer that kept the core-gameplay and I spent hundreds of hours on it.
MGSV Metal Gear Online (the _other_ tacked-on multiplayer) was also great, but very unreliable netcode made it frustrating.
I wish someone would just take that game engine and make another good game on it. I _almost_ bought metal gear survive on the engine alone, that is how good it is.
I haven't played 4 (couldn't get past the cutscenes), but ah... Quiet is definitely front and centre in 5 at a certain point in the storyline, very embarrassingly so.
> I mean every time that Kojima made a game it turned out to be something that people talk about for years on. But the second it gets slightly more ambitious investors get their panties in the knot about it even though throughout history Kojima's products made a massive return.
Death Stranding 2 didn't do all that well. I don't think his games after MGS3 are as highly regarded.
Surprised Valve didn't try to step in. There was a comment from a former Valve employee that they had tried to recruit Kojima for an earlier project (probably Death Stranding) but got outbid.
Probably got outbid again. I love valve's business model/strategy/ethics, but its undeniable that a tradeoff for not being beholden to increasing shareholder value is that you often have less resources than your competitors for making big moves like this, since youre not raising capital from shareholders
While PlayStation is on a streak of one bad decision after the other, I'd give them benefit of the doubt here.
Kojima likes to work unhinged on grand ideas with a tall budget which may stick or not stick at all. So may be Sony didn't like the direction of Physint and decided to dump it.
While Sony may be wrong in judging the game in its early stage, the replacement publisher, Microsoft, has solid track record of terrible taste at creating exclusives.
They're saying on Reddit that DS2's sales fell well below expectations, which wouldn't surprise me. I liked the game a lot but it was a sequel to an already fairly niche game (that I liked even more).
Success is measured in profit for companies and it seems that the numbers of what games like Death Stranding cost compared to what they earned back are not available, so it likely isn't looking rosy.
I'm seeing claims of a cost in the $100M to $300M range, while seeing earnings in the $60M to $120M (as of 2025) range. That's $20M plus in the best case, which is still underwhelming.
> As of March 2021, the game has sold 5 million copies worldwide for the PS4 and PC platforms.
> By April 2025, Death Stranding had reached over 20 million players worldwide.
It sells for as little as five bucks in some markets [1] and has done so since at least 2021 [2]. Even the most expensive version is only about twice of that.
This makes it a bit difficult to estimate earnings from worldwide sales numbers. But yes, the earnings could be higher. The cost could be lower, too. It's all just speculation.
Death Stranding 1 at least was a fairly large commercial success. 5 million copies sold, critical darling, and a hugely original put at doing something new.
This situation seems very similar to Konami's frustrations with him a decade ago. Don't get me wrong, Konami too seemed hell-bent on driving into the ground, but Kojima does have a reputation for going over time and over budget. In a world of tightening belts, I wonder if Sony execs felt the same frustration as their counterparts did. We'll see how he fairs with Xbox, which seems even more eager than the other two to shutter things these days.
I imagine every publisher in the games industry dropped whatever they were doing the second they heard Kojima's game was on the market. Happy to see the project found its funding!
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[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 3.3 ms ] threadIt sold only 2-3 million copies which, depending on how much money they spent on development and marketing, may be a net loss
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding_2%3A_On_the_Be...
It remains to be seen what egg will be laid in this case, how many golden ones may come after, and how many end up on Playstation anyway.
Some of the many game mechanics I didn't enjoy at all:
- Holding still and holding your breath until.
- Having to calm your technobaby or they will have a nervous breakdown.
- Constantly tilting your weight left and right so your packages don't fall.
- Slowly walking everywhere, because your packages will fall if you're not careful.
I don't know it it gets better after 20 hours, I couldn't reconcile my need for entertainment against knowing 80% of those hours were spent walking and balancing my stack of packages. I'll still try another of his games, but likely not DS 2.
MGS 3 itself while an excellent game overstays it welcome after you defeat "The End" IMO.
The games that he is well known for at this point are really 20+ years old.
MGS4 and MGS5 were successful but I don't think they were really that good. I am not alone when it comes to that.
The vast majority of praise goes to MGS2 and 3 these days.
> Death Stranding franchise is one of the "games that he is well known for" and it is most def not 20+ years old.
It isn't nearly as well respected as MGS1-3.
> Dont see your point.
The point is that Kojima work these days isn't nearly as much of a draw as it once was. If fans of the original MGS games like myself aren't that interested in his newer stuff that says quite a lot.
In the case of MGS4 and MGS5, because they're weirdly horny... Like, MGS5 was a good game, but you can't tell me that Kojima doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about bikini clad snipers.
MGSV Metal Gear Online (the _other_ tacked-on multiplayer) was also great, but very unreliable netcode made it frustrating.
I wish someone would just take that game engine and make another good game on it. I _almost_ bought metal gear survive on the engine alone, that is how good it is.
Death Stranding 2 didn't do all that well. I don't think his games after MGS3 are as highly regarded.
and then I saw... how video games used to be...
(1985 - 1991)
https://youtu.be/UovXq7smRwQ
https://youtu.be/WwltLEe-QxQ
https://youtu.be/x98ZH03tTno
https://youtu.be/ATaAyqTnJDE
But, yes you may be correct, i "didn't remember their 'Bugs'"...maybe too much of a "Lag"-something. Enjoy your nearing Weekend, regards... (-:
Kojima likes to work unhinged on grand ideas with a tall budget which may stick or not stick at all. So may be Sony didn't like the direction of Physint and decided to dump it.
While Sony may be wrong in judging the game in its early stage, the replacement publisher, Microsoft, has solid track record of terrible taste at creating exclusives.
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls596355504/
I'm seeing claims of a cost in the $100M to $300M range, while seeing earnings in the $60M to $120M (as of 2025) range. That's $20M plus in the best case, which is still underwhelming.
It's also impossible to judge success relative to marketing budget, how well the game was pushed by Sony etc.
Clearly a critical success and an objectively good game however.
This is surely more than $60M-$120M earnings.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding
This makes it a bit difficult to estimate earnings from worldwide sales numbers. But yes, the earnings could be higher. The cost could be lower, too. It's all just speculation.
[1]: https://steamdb.info/app/1850570/
[2]: https://old.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/qzj7i7/just_a_rem...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding#Reception
Hopefully we won't get another MGS:V situation where the last part of the game is just kind of missing.