Bungie’s Marathon Is Safe Despite Shortcomings For PlayStation, Acquisition Losses Stretch Over $765 Million

Although a very anticipated deal with the acquisition of Bungie by PlayStation, the release for Marathon only came with a soft landing rather than an explosive debut for the extraction shooter. “If hero-style extraction PvP doesn’t bother you, Marathon offers various combos and can be your new FPS shooter to try out,” our review for Marathon reads; scoring a 6/10.

However, Bungie is looking to have a permanent stay with Marathon over the previous PlayStation live-service – Concord. A full year roadmap has already been released sharing the plans for the extraction shooter well into 2027. What still lingers is the return from the buyout for Bungie as Destiny 2 has yet to show a promising revenue stream that warrants the $3 billion purchase.

At its most recent earnings call, corporate Sony revealed in its Game & Network Services segment that the acquisition has faced losses of ¥120.1 billion ($765 million) for the PlayStation company. You can view the slide in the image below:

Via IGN, chief financial officer Lin Tao during a Q&A for investors shared that Marathon will continue to receive support despite the premature fallout for the live-service. “In our studio business, earnings from Bungie’s title portfolio did not reach our expectations, so we downwardly revised our business plan and impaired the full amount of the fixed assets related to Bungie except for goodwill.

“Player reception to Marathon is strong, with the game receiving a Metacritic score of 82 and more than 90% of the player reviews on Steam being positive. Engagement metrics such as retention also remain at a high level. Going forward, we aim to improve the performance of the game by working to retain highly engaged core users through the introduction of additional content, further improvements in the gameplay experience and expansion of the user base.”

Other details that Sony shared during the recent financial report disclosed its current plans for next-generation hardware. Although not naming the PlayStation 6 yet, the new hardware was regarded to being in the air for its release. Despite opposing Microsoft planning to ship Project Helix in 2027, PlayStation has no fixed window yet. You can read the full report by heading here.

Are you surprised by this development for Bungie & PlayStation?

Source: Sony