Rumors have been floating around for weeks now that Sony is in the process of making some sort of developer or publisher acquisition. Those rumors collided with Hideo Kojima’s studio, Kojima Productions, earlier this week when the developer’s game, Death Stranding, was added to the PlayStation Studios banner. The addition fueled speculation that Sony would be purchasing Kojima Productions since the other games in the banner are from first-party PlayStation developers.
That rumor was quickly shot down by Hideo Kojima himself who said that Kojima Productions would be remaining an independent studio. Now, Jeff Grubb has added what he knows from inside sources. According to Grubb, the name being thrown around as a potential acquisition candidate is “bigger” than Kojima Productions.
If you’ve heard the rumors about a big acquisition from Sony, it was never Kojima Productions. At least not as far as I’m aware. The people that were hearing this stuff, including me, that was not a name that was thrown around, it was bigger than Kojima Productions.
Jeff Grubb
Naturally, this has further fuelled debate about which company could be in the crosshairs of Sony. Unfortunately, Grubb’s assertion that the name he heard is “bigger” than Kojima Productions doesn’t narrow things down too much. Since Kojima Productions went independent from Konami in 2015 the company has only produced one game, Death Stranding. Theoretically, any developer with more than one Death Stranding-sized title released in the last few years would qualify as “bigger” than Kojima Productions.
Although Hideo Kojima is a massive name in gaming, Kojima Productions doesn’t own the rights to the franchises that made him and his company famous. Metal Gear Solid and Zone of the Enders are both owned by Konami, meaning Sony wouldn’t benefit from purchasing Kojima Productions in terms of gaining IPs. If Sony wants to compete with Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard it will likely be looking at developers or publishers with IPs that fit the PlayStation brand.
