Death Stranding franchise barely broke even — and that likely explains why Sony dropped Physint

Sony's exit from Physint, Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid spiritual successor, now has a financial explanation to go alongside the reported development troubles. Xbox has since stepped in to rescue the project, turning what looked like a quiet internal decision into a public relations headache for Sony at an already difficult moment — the company is simultaneously taking heat for killing physical game discs and raising console prices.

Analyst Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics ran the numbers on the Death Stranding franchise and the picture isn't pretty for Sony. The first Death Stranding cost roughly $100 million to make; the sequel came in somewhere between $150 million and $200 million, inflated by a longer development cycle and COVID disruptions. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach has sold 2.5 million copies since launch — 1.8 million on PS5 and 700,000 on PC — generating around $170 million in revenue. The original Death Stranding has moved about 5 million copies over its lifetime. Combined, the two games have brought in roughly $413 million in revenue, which sounds substantial until you factor in marketing, the opportunity cost of pulling Guerrilla Games developers onto the project, and the celebrity casting costs for the sequel. Elliott's conclusion: the franchise has almost certainly broken even, but not by much.

That razor-thin margin matters a lot right now. Sony has had a brutal run of expensive misfires in the PS5 era. Concord was cancelled after burning through more than $300 million. Marathon sold 1.8 million copies. Saros brought in $61 million. Marvel Tokon moved 725,000 units for $49 million. Lego Horizon Adventures sold fewer than 250,000 copies across Steam and PS5, generating just $11 million. Elliott notes that these repeated scares have made PlayStation significantly more cautious about which big-budget projects it backs — "margins are the name of the game now." A Bloomberg report adds that people familiar with Physint's development have raised concerns about missed deadlines and potential budget overruns, and that Sony was reluctant to pour hundreds of millions into a game it wouldn't own outright, especially if it was only a timed exclusive.

Death Stranding 2 sales have reportedly slowed sharply since launch, even after the game was discounted to $40, which doesn't help the case for continued investment. For context, Sony as a whole posted over $80 billion in revenue during its 2025 financial year, meaning Kojima Productions' entire output barely registers at the corporate level. Whether Xbox can turn Physint into a genuine win remains to be seen, but for Sony, the math — at least according to Elliott — tells a clear story about why the partnership ended.