Following Sony dropping Hideo Kojima's next project, analysts report that the Death Stranding series just about broke even in sales.
Despite making a massive deal out of its exclusivity when it was announced – it being the finale of a State of Play presentation – Sony reportedly wanted to cancel Kojima Productions' Metal Gear spiritual successor, Physint. Pretty soon after, Xbox announced it's now publishing both of the upcoming Hideo Kojima games, with OD still on the way, leaving many perplexed as to why Sony would drop one of its most anticipated titles amid a whirlwind few months of bad press for the PlayStation brand.
Some speculated that the Death Stranding games had underperformed, leading to Sony's decision; however, from the sounds of things, the series didn't flop, but it didn't do much more than its budget. Anilea Analytics reports that the first Death Stranding did pretty well, selling 5 million copies by the end in the same time it took Death Stranding 2 to sell around 2.5 million copies.
Death Stranding has reportedly made about $243 million, with a rumored budget of around $100 million, while Death Stranding 2 has made about $129 million on a rumored budget of somewhere between $150-200 million. Anilea reports the franchise has definitely broken even with its $413 million made across both games, "but not by much," with "an estimated return on investment of 18% to 38%."
The development of Metal Gear Solid 5 reportedly going over budget is part of what caused the rift between Konami and Hideo Kojima, so the idea of Physint development being expensive isn't too surprising to hear. And with Sony releasing a string of high-profile misses as of late, with the likes of Marathon, Saros, and Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls having pretty low-profile launches, and of course Sony sinking a ton of money into failed live service projects that end up canceled mid-dev (or after release in Concord's case), the publisher being more stingy is not entirely surprising.
However, Sony built its way back from the PS3's failures by being known for its high-quality releases. The Last of Us, the Horizon series, and so on fed into the prestige-publisher look Sony maintained until it decided to chase a live-service hit and stopped releasing games as often. And even then the Wolverine reviews seem to indicate the PlayStation first-party formula may be losing its shine a bit.
I can't think of something with more prestige than Hideo Kojima doing a new Metal Gear-like game, which not only would probably sell better than Death Stranding did on that basis alone, but even if it only broke even, it's the type of game that gets people in who will eventually pick up the next game. But hey, PlayStation's loss is Xbox's gain, unless it also decides to cancel the title.
