Hideo Kojima says that Xbox was very enthusiastic about his pitch for Physint, calling it something the publisher had never seen before.
The new action espionage game from Kojima Productions has had a busy week, with the news of PlayStation unexpectedly dropping the project before it was picked up by Xbox. This was soon followed by the news that John Wick 4 and Nosferatu actor Bill Skarsgård will be taking on the role of the game’s lead. There were also reports that Sony canceled the game because it was missing deadlines and set to go “well over budget”, which Kojima Productions took to Twitter to call “unsubstantiated speculation.”
Speaking to IGN, Kojima explains how Physint’s move to Xbox came to be. Kojima explains that when looking for a publisher, “it’s not just the money we needed. We also needed technical support, marketing support, holding playtests and things like that.” He recalls, “I approached Xbox and they were great. They could support us technically. And also we’ve been working on OD with them, so we already had a connection.”
While the core of Physint – a Kojima led action espionage game in the vein of Metal Gear Solid – was a pretty easy pitch, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the game itself, with Kojima describing it as a “project that will redefine ‘action-espionage’, unbound by any existing genres in digital entertainment.” Kojima explains, “I made a proper pitch of Physint to them. And then their first reaction was like, ‘This pitch was fantastic. Never seen a pitch like this!’ And that’s how it started with Xbox.”
Microsoft is clearly open to his ideas, as Kojima previously said his pitch for OD sounded “crazy” to every publisher except Xbox. On top of that, new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma called OD “deeply moving,” with her being in the CEO role during the time Kojima was pitching Physint to new publishers.