Sony released its latest financial report this morning, covering the final three months of its most recent fiscal year, which ended in March. One of the biggest takeaways from that report is what's happening at Bungie. Looking at these numbers, things don't look good for the studio.
Sony Posts $765 Million Loss Against Bungie
Sony's FY2025 report notes that it recorded a record. Impairment loss of 120.1 billion yen ($765 million) to Bungie During the last fiscal year. Simply put, an impairment loss means a decrease in the value of an asset, which means Bungie is worth $765 million less to Sony than it was this time last year.
Marathon development reportedly cost “more than $200 million”
These numbers don't account for the ongoing costs of maintaining live service games.
That alone is hard to read, but it gets even worse. After Marathon, which is the first game Bungie has actually released under PlayStation ownership, the company hopes to release in the fourth quarter of FY2025, taking most of its losses from the first three quarters of last fiscal year. Unfortunately, it's quite the opposite.
Of the total 120.1 billion yen, a whopping 88.6 billion yen ($565 million) occurred in the last quarter of FY2025.This is the period in which Marathon was released. The Marathon began about four weeks before the end of the reporting period, so if this performance shows up, there's a chance the numbers will look a little more positive in Sony's next report. The problem is that based on what we know so far, it doesn't seem likely at all.
Marathon is almost certainly not doing what PlayStation expected it to do
PlayStation hasn't shared player counts or sales figures for Marathon, and this latest report may explain why. The only metric we have to keep going is how many people are playing Marathon on Steam. The Extraction Shooter appears to have around 13,000 players. Those are numbers that some studios might like, but they're almost certainly not enough of a foundation for Marathon.
That said, the latest news we've heard from the Marathon team suggests that the game isn't going anywhere, with years of content planned. It's already outlasted live service flops like Concord and Highguard, so it's not all bad. Perhaps enough people are playing it on PlayStation and Xbox that Sony will want to keep it going for now.
I think the amount Sony paid Bungie may have a lot to do with Marathon being given more screen time than other recent live service releases, along with the studio's pedigree. Sony acquired Bungie for $3.6 billion in 2022.Even based on the latest figures alone, the current value is much lower.
When it comes to pedigree, one of the biggest reasons Sony acquired Bungie was because of Destiny 2. Since the acquisition, we've seen huge success, with player counts exceeding 300,000 on Steam alone on several occasions. However, interest in the sequel has plummeted and player numbers are now roughly the same as the marathon.
- Establishment date
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May 1, 1991
- parent company
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sony interactive entertainment
- headquarters
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Chicago, Illinois, USA
