Kojima's quirky Death Stranding 2 CD player is shaped like a BB Pod nursery

Working with Japanese audio brand km5, Kojima Productions has released the Instant Disc Audio Cp1 in a limited Death Stranding 2 edition. It is a portable CD player whose entire design language borrows from the BB Pod, the artificial womb-like nursery unit that houses Death Stranding's bridge babies.

The unit leans into that inspiration with a translucent orange shell that lets you watch the disc spin and the internals do their thing, with accent marks lifted straight from the game's interface for added measure.

Death Stranding 2 CD player price and specs

Under the hood, the portable CD player features Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity, a 1,800 mAh battery that is reportedly good for up to 8 hours of playback, USB-C charging, and an admittedly tiny LED display for track info. Kojima’s BB Pod audio player pricing is set at ¥25,300 (about $160/€140) and is already shipping with two art postcards and a slot behind the front cover to stash lyric cards.

Granted, this is a niche gadget, but it taps into something bigger, as transparent, retro-styled CD and cassette players have been quietly booming, not just in Japan but across the US and Europe too, as physical media nostalgia meets a generation that grew up entirely on streaming and considers retro audio exotic and cool.

Hideo Kojima has never met a promo he didn't want to turn into a small piece of art, and his newest collaboration is exactly the kind of beautifully weird object his fans have come to expect. The game's expanding merch universe now gets another product that's not an accessory per se but more like a physical extension of the game's addictive qualities. It doesn’t really matter whether it plays CDs any better than any ancient optical drive, as it is a collector's piece and not just for fans of the Death Stranding universe and Hideo Kojima’s quirky style.

Get the Death Stranding 2: On The Beach PS5 edition on Amazon