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Comment by kushalpandya | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

Which of his ideas didn't stick? Pretty sure the guy hasn't had a failure in recent memory.

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls596355504/

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.

This may be the case - although none of us have access to the real figures.

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.

> 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.

This is surely more than $60M-$120M earnings.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding

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.

[1]: https://steamdb.info/app/1850570/

[2]: https://old.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/qzj7i7/just_a_rem...

Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2 come to mind.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding#Reception

He was also facing cancellation at Sony, so it's plausible (if not likely) that he had to accept less favorable terms from Microsoft.

Hopefully we won't get another MGS:V situation where the last part of the game is just kind of missing.

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