PlayStation IP ‘Death Stranding’ Coming To Microsoft’s PC Game Pass, Blurring Lines

Games PlayStation IP ‘Death Stranding’ Coming To Microsoft’s PC Game Pass, Blurring Lines Paul Tassi Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet. New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories.

Got it! Aug 19, 2022, 08:07am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Death Stranding Kojima It’s been teased and leaked all week, but as of today, it’s official . Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding is coming to Xbox Game Pass for PC, which these days is just called PC Game Pass. A big game hitting Game Pass is not exactly shocking, but what’s extremely odd in this case is the fact that Death Stranding is a PlayStation-owned IP, which Kojima made in conjunction with Sony.

This has resulted in some confusing situations in the past, where Death Stranding has shown up in “Sony portfolio” art, causing some to believe that Sony has or was about to acquire Kojima Productions. But that’s not the case. Rather, Death Stranding’s IP alone is owned by Sony, not Kojima’s studio.

Which makes this a pretty weird situation where Death Stranding is coming to the PC variant of their rival’s subscription service. This may have something to do with the fact that 505 Games, not Sony, is the publisher of the PC version of Death Stranding, which already exists in places like Steam and the Epic Games Store, outside the PlayStation ecosystem, even as we are starting to see more PC version of PS games. The PC Game Pass deal is being presented as something between 505 Games, Kojima Productions and Microsoft, with nary a mention of IP-holder Sony.

It’s not clear whether Sony had to sign off on this, or the deal 505 has with handling the PC version can bypass whatever Sony wants to do. It seems extremely unlikely Sony would ever let Death Stranding go to Xbox itself. Death Stranding is coming to PC Game Pass on August 23, and Microsoft says they know we will have “a lot of questions” and they are going to make a community Q and A guide later, which is not online yet.

I do have many questions, but they’re namely about rights stuff that no one really cares about, and the fundamentals are that if you have PC Game Pass, you are about to have access to a really good game. MORE FOR YOU ‘Demon Slayer’ Season 2 Finally Has An Actual 2021 Release Date Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Season 2 Not A Sure Thing, Says Director ‘Genshin Impact’ Still Refuses To Increase Anniversary Rewards, Despite Fan Outcry Kojima Productions has been the target of acquisition speculation on both the Microsoft and Sony side ever since both parties started snatching up every available independent publisher. Most recently, Kojima and Microsoft have announced a partnership on an unnamed game, and past that, Norman Reedus seemed to indicate that Death Stranding 2 was also in the works, and no doubt that would again be a Sony thing.

So things are getting a little weird up in here for sure as Kojima plays the field as only he can. Follow me on Twitter , YouTube , Facebook and Instagram . Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls .

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