“Death Stranding” is about to land on Microsoft’s PC Game Pass service, and some media, who are not too concerned about the excitement, asked Sony about the specific details of the matter. Sony issued a response to this today, saying, “The PC version of “Death Stranding” is solely responsible for the release of the PC version by Kojima Studio and 505 Games, and “SIE did not participate in this promotion.” Although 505 Games owns the PC distribution rights of “Death Stranding”, the owner of the IP is actually Sony, not Kojima Studios and 505.
Many players remember that Sony invested in and owns the Death Stranding IP, and the Sony logo even appeared in the Game Pass promo for Death Stranding. While this isn’t the first Sony game to land on Game Pass, it’s very rare for one version of an IP invested and copyrighted to switch to another party’s subscription service, even if it’s just a PC version.
The question now is, how did Sony go about negotiating a copyright contract with a distribution channel they had absolutely no control over?
Similar examples include Major League Baseball, a multi-year development contract held by Sony’s San Diego studio, which has also moved to other platforms. However, the copyright of “Major League Baseball” is in the hands of MLB, and its right to speak is very powerful. Sony can only let it go if it wants to keep the contract, which is very different from “Death Stranding”.
