I predicted that people might leave, but no one did.

Anecdote 2026-09-20

“I predicted that people might leave, but no one did.”

What it documents

Three days after SIE’s notice, Kojima told the Physint team leads, reduced the team and moved some members to OD while looking for another partner. He feared people would leave, but said no one left the studio and that the team continued enthusiastically preparing material for the Physint pitch.

Source

IGN — Daniel Robson and Wesley Yin-Poole, interview with Hideo Kojima, 2026-09-20. View source ↗

“But three days after the meeting with SIE, I called the leaders of the Physint team, and I explained the situation to them. […] I had to make the Physint team smaller and move some people to the OD team. […] I had told them to create material for a pitch for Physint. […] I predicted that people might leave, but no one did.”

OD PHYSINT work collaboration

See on the map

“But the number one priority is my staff. We have about 200 people, and I expanded because we had Physint. […] I didn't want to do the same thing we did for P.T.”

work 2026-09-20 IGN — Daniel Robson and Wesley Yin-Poole, interview with Hideo Kojima
“True story: after the meeting, the first thing I did was, I came back to my desk, and I started to write and add a little bit more to the concept for Physint.”

creativity 2026-09-20 IGN — Daniel Robson and Wesley Yin-Poole, interview with Hideo Kojima
“So the work didn’t stop. […] I have to change the story depending on how the game experiment works.”

video games 2026-09-20 IGN — Daniel Robson and Wesley Yin-Poole, interview with Hideo Kojima
In mid-June 2026, PlayStation Studios notified Kojima and KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS that it would cancel PHYSINT. The project was important both to Kojima and to his studio. After three months of searching for a new partner, Kojima and his team found a shared vision with XBOX and decided to work together again. Development of PHYSINT continues.

video games 2026-09-10 X · @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN
In a statement supplied to IGN after the interview, Kojima Productions urged scepticism toward unofficial explanations for Physint’s change of partner. The studio said it was healthy and profitable, that development was continuing with Xbox and that its relationship with PlayStation remained strong.

work 2026-09-20 IGN — official Kojima Productions statement appended to the interview

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I predicted that people might leave, but no one did.

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