 Hey everyone, welcome back to Nintendo Prime, so it feels weird at times when we're looking at the video game landscape and wondering who's going to acquire who, what's happening, who's making moves. You know Nintendo obviously acquired next level games not that long ago, but that was a common sense purchase, the ownership wanted out, next level games is making Nintendo games exclusively for like a decade plus, so it was just a common sense purchase for Nintendo. But there are other times that something might seem common sense and might seem like it makes sense, but it doesn't mean that that's the way that the company and the people behind that company want to go. Now today we're actually talking about a story that isn't necessarily about Nintendo at all, but is still really interesting how this came to be and why people started to believe it and I get it, but also it's sort of a lesson in hey you know maybe sometimes when you speculate certain things it doesn't always mean what you think it means. Now if you're enjoying this video I would appreciate if you would drop a like and subscribe to the channel where I wrote to 80,000 subscribers, we have a big summer show coming up that I hope all of you guys want to attend, more details to come on that later once we get the dates for Summer Game Fest. Now moving on let's talk about what we're talking about and this is about well Hideo Kojima, you guys might know his name, he was the maker of Death Stranding, Silent Hill, a bunch of games back in the old Konami days, he hasn't worked at Konami in a while, he actually kind of left Konami on not the greatest of terms, found in his own studio and ended up making Death Stranding and there's been a lot of rumors and speculation circling over the last few months that he is going to be joining PlayStation Studios, his studio would be joining PlayStation Studios and look, he obviously has an affinity to PlayStation, he's made a lot of games for Sony, these games for Sony's platform but that's not actually what's happening and the man himself shot it down so let's actually look at this, so over here in IGN it says Hideo Kojima says Kojima Productions will remain independent after tweeting PlayStation Studios banner, Hideo Kojima denies joining PlayStation Studios so obviously you know he tweeted out a banner, tweeted out that they're moving out of their current location, made people all think oh they're becoming part of PlayStation now to be fair there's reports out there from Jeff Grubb at Xbox and Kojima are actually in partnership right now on a future game but that's neither here nor there because you could still have that and be acquired because that deal could have been done before the acquisition, you know sort of like you know that like the death loop or whatever that got made for PlayStation after Bethesda was acquired so anyways Hideo Kojima mysteriously posted a photo of PlayStation Studios before clarifying that his studio will remain independent. Around 1pm in the afternoon Japan time Kojima posted a picture of the PlayStation Studios banner with games from all of Sony's first-party studios and also Death Stranding very interesting this cryptic tweet immediately kicked off speculation that Kojima Productions officially joined PlayStation Studios which makes sense because all the other included parts of the image are from PlayStation Studios. Kojima followed up 10 minutes later by clarifying Kojima Productions is still an independent company. In the follow-up tweet independently translated by IGN Kojima writes I seem to have invited misinterpretation but Kojipro has been and will continue to be an independent production studio. IGN reached out to Kojima for further clarification. Kojima Productions was founded in 2015 as an independent studio after previously being an in-house team within Konami. Kojima's previous company. To date the studio's only title remains Death Stranding a game starting the Walking Dead's Norman Reedus as Porter who must walk across the post-apocalyptic United States to reunite the country. With its post-modern aesthetic and cinematic storytelling Death Stranding was Pete Kojima to divide critical reception and expanded universal PlayStation 5 was later released console and PC are under the name Death Stranding's Director's Cut. A possible explanation for his tweet could be from Kojima Productions' already close relationship with Sony. Kojima announced his new studio alongside Sony at 2015 PlayStation E3 presentation and Death Stranding uses a version of Guerrilla Games Decima Engine. Speculation over new PlayStation acquisitions is at an all-time high and Sony is currently on a buying spree having acquired teams like House Marquis, Valkyrie, Entertainment as well. Sony also purchased Bungie though the Destiny developer is not part of PlayStation Studios. So I find this to be quite interesting because obviously the close ties and connections are there and Kojima's had no problem basically associating his development company with Sony using even one of Sony's own in-house engines. However, that doesn't mean he doesn't want to be independent. I kind of liken this to Platinum Games although Platinum Games is a much larger studio with multiple teams and making games for multiple companies. But what like people thinking that Nintendo should buy Platinum Games because of Beta 3, Astral Chain, like oh look at that close symbionic relationship or maybe you know this company should buy that company because oh my gosh they keep making these amazing games for this platform and I kind of go look that doesn't mean you don't want to be independent because independence allows you to do what you want to do. The moment that you are locked into a single company is the moment you lose some of that creative freedom that some people really want. Some people don't mind just making games for one company but others kind of sort of get perturbed at the idea of being stuck and not being able to try something somewhere else if you like it. And I always thought the idea of Kojima joining Sony and having his studio be exclusively Sony was always a strange one because look at what happened at Kojima at Konami and I understand Sony isn't Konami but bottom line is yeah he had a lot of restrictions because he was locked into what Konami wanted him to do and it just always felt like to me after that experience that Kojima so long as he was doing fine financially and can afford to pay his employees were not going to want to get locked down again to a single company even if it's a company that's treated them well help make them make games let them use an engine you know paid them to make exclusive content even that being considered locking yourself into one company is just extremely dangerous when it comes to future potential and obviously allowing yourself that creative freedom as an example a deal with Microsoft would not happen if they were locked in the Sony so why is that deal happening with Microsoft well Microsoft obviously has either an idea for a game or Kojima has an idea for a game who says Kojima didn't approach Microsoft with an idea for a game we go hey you know I don't have to just like always be so close with Sony why can't we do something with you who says Kojima won't approach Nintendo one day with an idea he has that might work perfect in a portable form and he goes gosh when you think portable gaming you think Nintendo so maybe someday you'll want to do some project with Nintendo and approach them for funding or you know to partner up so this is what's so cool about Kojima is that I think he's learned from the past that being locked into a single company at least for him is not good so even though he has a close symbionic relationship with Sony and Sony is going to always let him you know do what he wants basically because hey his games keep selling a lot that stranding sold a lot also he's not going to join Sony I think it'll be a cold day in hell before Kojima lets his company be bought out by any of the platform holders so I don't know I just wanted to cover the story because I find it fascinating how the rumor mill happens the speculation happens and then the man himself just comes out and says uh no like I understand why you might have associated my tweets and other things like like he gets why people are connecting the dots but he also says people are basically just reading way the hell too much in this we remain an independent studio we're always been an independent studio we have no plans to be acquired by anybody because of course you know why would you want to be locked in after dealing with that from a majority of your career stay independent still get these companies to help support you in fun games and enjoy making whatever the hell you damn well feel like you'll be able to do that so long as you keep making quality products you make quality products that sell well and companies are going to keep wanting to fund your game so not really a problem I think he's doing just fine I mean gosh they made one game since he's left Konami and then one game is sold incredibly well so yeah let's just let the man and his team do whatever the hell they're doing work out the deals that they're working out okay yeah he's going to make a future PlayStation exclusive game at some point I'm sure but hey if he makes an exclusive Xbox game next who cares let the man do what the man wants to do you know I say the same thing for you know people like Sakurai let's say Sakurai doesn't want to do Smash anymore or doesn't want to do Kirby let's say him and his development team want to make a game for some other platform let him do it who cares he doesn't work for Nintendo Sakurai is 100 independent so yeah I I'm kind of a mind that let the creative heads do what they want like a sugar Miyamoto which sounds insane wants to leave Nintendo one day and make a game for Sony let him he's a legend he's earned the right to do whatever the hell he wants to do not again probably never gonna happen he's I mean I swear if you know I'm Miyamoto's deathbed you know you're gonna look at his corpse and there's just gonna be like Nintendo flag just popping up everywhere because that guy bleeds Nintendo but I'm just saying that hey let these legends do what they want with whatever left of their careers uh because they've earned it all right guys I'm Nathan and Rebel Jants from Nathan and Prime thank you so much for tuning in and remember always Hypersponsibly