Xbox paid a "fraction" of Sony's $400M ask for Physint — but layoffs are happening anyway

Xbox is funding Hideo Kojima's next game, Physint, for significantly less than the $400 million Sony reportedly walked away from — but the exact number hasn't been confirmed by anyone. The dispute puts a sharp lens on Xbox's spending priorities at a moment when the company is simultaneously restructuring and cutting staff across its gaming division.

The $400M figure

The number entered the conversation via Christopher Dring of The Game Business, who floated it on his podcast as the budget Xbox had committed. Insiders immediately pushed back. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, who was in Tokyo for the September Tokyo Game Show, wrote on ResetEra that Xbox is paying "significantly less" — but stopped short of naming a figure, saying he was still waiting on confirmation from multiple sources. As Schreier put it, there are many numbers floating around: what Sony originally agreed to, what the budget climbed to, what a version with A-list actors would cost, and what Xbox actually signed.

Windows Central's Jez Corden went further, publishing a piece titled "No, Xbox didn't pay $400 million for Hideo Kojima's Physint." Corden confirmed that $400M was Sony's reported ask — not Xbox's commitment — and added that the Xbox deal covers more than just the game: it includes movie, TV, and other media rights under the Physint IP. According to Corden, the contract also gives Kojima Productions better terms on OD, the experimental horror game co-developed with Xbox.

What Xbox actually has

For context, Hideo Kojima Says Sony Cancelled Physint Over a Zoom Call — Xbox Saved It after the project burned through its agreed budgets with years of development still ahead. Xbox stepped in, and Xbox CEO visits Kojima Productions after swooping in to save Physint to formalize the partnership. The deal gives Microsoft two Kojima titles: Physint, a spy-action thriller starring Bill Skarsgård in the lead role, and OD, which features Sophia Lillis and Hunter Schafer and recently resumed performance capture after the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Neither title is close to release. Physint has no confirmed engine — Sony pulled Decima access when the partnership ended — making a launch before 2030 unlikely. OD has no release window, though 2028 is the rough estimate in circulation.

The awkward optics

Paying any large sum for two long-horizon games while cutting hundreds of employees is a hard story for Xbox to tell publicly. The $400M figure may be wrong, but the tension between mega-deals and mass layoffs is real — and no one from Microsoft, Sony, or Kojima Productions has put an actual number on record to settle it, per PC Gamer.