Hideo Kojima says he’ll stay independent, right after tweeting PlayStation Studios logo

Hideo Kojima has stated that his studio will remain independent, shortly after sharing a PlayStation Studios image that recently led to acquisition speculation.

Yesterday it was reported that Sony Interactive Entertainment had updated the PlayStation Studios website banner to include an image of Death Stranding.

This led to speculation that Sony may have acquired Kojima Productions, and were perhaps preparing to make an announcement.

This morning Kojima then tweeted the banner image with no accompanying message, leading some to wonder if he was confirming the news.

Instead, it appears that Kojima was either innocently sharing the image, or trolling his followers.

A couple of hours later he posted another tweet saying: “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding, but Kojima Productions has been and will continue to be an independent studio.

Hideo Kojima founded Kojima Productions in 2005, under the control of Konami, where he worked for over 30 years and created the Metal Gear series.

After splitting from Konami in 2015, he reformed Kojima Productions as an independent studio, backed by PlayStation.

In March, Kojima revealed that the studio was relocating after five years at its Tokyo-based office. The reason for the move wasn’t given, but this too led to speculation that the studio had been acquired by Sony and was moving to its offices.

Although it now appears that Kojima Studios will not be acquired by Sony, Kojima’s tweet doesn’t entirely rule it out.

It was also announced in January that Sony plans to acquire Halo creator Bungie in a deal worth $3.6 billion, but it’s claimed that after completion of the deal Bungie will be “an independent subsidiary” of the PlayStation firm and remain a multiplatform studio.

There may still be a similar deal planned for Kojima Studios.

Further reading

Hideo Kojima collects prestigious Japanese cultural award

Metal Gear and Death Stranding designer awarded for his contribution to fine arts

PlayStation boss Jim Ryan recently confirmed that Sony has more acquisitions planned following a number of recent buyouts.

Over the past year the platform holder has acquired Haven, Bluepoint Games, Housemarque, Nixxes Software and Firesprite.

Meanwhile, it’s been claimed this week that Kojima’s long-rumoured Xbox project, which was first reported in April 2021, was still on “as of a couple of weeks ago”.