Xbox Reveals Tokyo Game Show Plans and Expanded Partnership With Kojima Productions

The Xbox team will make a stop at the Tokyo Game Show later this month after coming to Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, last month. There will be a special broadcast on September 17 at 3AM PT / 6AM ET / 11am UK, and there will also be an Xbox FanFest event in Tokyo on the same day.

“Hosted by Misuzu Araki, this year’s broadcast includes TGS-exclusive content, new gameplay and moments built specifically for this stage. Our annual Tokyo Game Show broadcast is proof of what is possible when creativity from across the region meets a truly global platform and XBOX is committed to being the stage where new and beloved franchises reach players around the world,” the Xbox team said today.

During the Phil Spencer era, Microsoft has been trying to court Japanese game developers, and that’s how we eventually got Japanese publishers like Sega and Square Enix to embrace Game Pass and Xbox Play Anywhere. At the Game Awards 2023, Microsoft also announced OD, a new horror game from Hideo Kojima, the renowned creator of the Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding franchises.

In a surprise announcement, Microsoft also revealed today that Physint, a game that Kojima had been developing with PlayStation, will now be published by Xbox Game Studios. In addition to this publishing agreement for OD and Physint, Microsoft said today that the Xbox team and Kojima Productions will be “collaborating across film and television to bring new stories to broader audiences.”

Xbox deepening its collaboration with Hideo Kojima, a video game creator with close ties with PlayStation, is quite an interesting development. Microsoft recently cancelled several first-party Xbox games like Everwild and Perfect Dark and also got rid of several studios acquired during the Phil Spencer era. Asha Sharma, the CEO of Xbox, also said that she wanted to invest more resources into Xbox’s blockbuster franchises such as Halo, Fallout, and The Elder Scrolls.

Hideo Kojima is known for pushing creative boundaries, not for crafting games for a mainstream audience. Maybe this is the type of experience PlayStation is no longer interested in.

After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to step away from collaborating with KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS on its project PHYSINT. We continue to have great admiration for Hideo Kojima’s vision for the game. Our relationship remains strong after three decades of industry-leading, genre-defining creative cooperation, and we look forward to continued close collaboration with Hideo Kojima and his award-winning independent studio in the future,” the PlayStation team said in a statement (https://x.com/PlayStation/status/2097875212427735146) today.