Hideki Kamiya, the legendary director behind the likes of Resident Evil 2, Ōkami, and Bayonetta, has been debating whether he should sue users on X who have accused him of stealing money from Xbox during the development of PlatinumGames’ canceled title Scalebound.
The accusations in question stemmed from Kamiya’s recent interview with VGC, during which he was asked if he’d spoken to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma about the possibility of “reviving” Scalebound. “Well, no, but now’s my opportunity to once again say that if they want to do it, let’s make it happen!” replied Kamiya. “Koyama is on board too. If you could include some footage [of Scalebound] in your article for Asha, that would be useful.”
For context, Scalebound was an action RPG developed by PlatinumGames and set to be published by Microsoft Studios, but was ultimately canceled in 2017. Kamiya was helming the project during its four years of development, although he has since parted ways with PlatinumGames and joined a new studio, Clovers, in 2023.
There’s no concrete info on exactly how much Scalebound cost to develop, nor has either Microsoft or PlatinumGames in any way implied that Kamiya used the funds allocated to the project for other purposes.
お前も名誉毀損で訴えてやろうか…？ https://t.co/2c9eYDEcKq
— 神谷英樹🍀 Hideki Kamiya🍀 (@HidekiKamiya_X) September 4, 2026
However, for reasons I genuinely cannot discern, some Xbox fans wholeheartedly believe that Kamiya diverted funds from Scalebound to pay for Bayonetta 2’s development… a game that was published by a small indie company you may have heard of named Nintendo.
Exactly how this oddly widespread rumor came to be is a mystery to me, but Kamiya, who is well-known for frequently interacting with users on social media, has addressed the unfounded allegations in two separate quote tweets on X by outright threatening to sue those pushing this narrative.
こういうデマを撒き散らしてるクソ虫は名誉毀損で訴えるぞ… https://t.co/mUM1Ht3Pu5
— 神谷英樹🍀 Hideki Kamiya🍀 (@HidekiKamiya_X) September 4, 2026
In one post, in reply to a user stating that Kamiya would “[grab] the budget from Scalebound so he can develop a game for his studio,” he replied (machine-translated from Japanese) that he was “gonna sue those shitty bugs spreading this kind of fake news for defamation…”
Similarly, when another user stated that Kamiya would “just steal the money to make other products again,” his reply was more straightforwardly threatening: “Should I sue you for defamation too…?”
It’s a rather bizarre series of exchanges, but nothing too out of the ordinary where Kamiya is concerned. Personally, however, I am far more interested in discerning why this rumor came to be in the first place, especially when PlatinumGames’ president and CEO, Atsushi Inaba, stated in 2023 that “watching fans getting angry at Microsoft over [Scalebound’s] cancellation wasn’t easy for [PlatinumGames] to watch,” as “both sides” were to blame for the project getting canned.