Sony Speaks on Bungie Acquisition Disaster, Takes an ‘Impairment Loss’

Sales, user engagement fallen short of expectations

Sony’s $3.6 billion purchase of Destiny 2 developer Bungie has, for all intents and purposes, been an utter disaster, and the PS5, PS4 hardware maker all but knows it at this point.

Having bought the studio to assist its push into the live-service space, Sony has cancelled multiple multiplayer projects and only had a single win in Helldivers 2. Destiny 2, after its main storyline concluded with The Final Shape DLC, has also fallen on very hard times, bleeding players and all-around sentiment surrounding the title at a low point.

As a result of those failings, Sony has recorded an “impairment loss against a portion of the assets at Bungie”.

Lin Tao, the CFO and Corporate Executive Officer at Sony, shared the comment as part of the Q&A section in today’s Q2 financials call for fiscal year 2025. Tao’s full quote reads:

Regarding Destiny 2, partially due to the changes in the competitive environment, the level of sales and user engagement have not reached the expectations we had at the time of the acquisition of Bungie. While we will continue to make improvements, we downwardly revised the business projection for the time being, and recorded an impairment loss against a portion of the assets at Bungie.

A few months ago, it was confirmed Bungie will be integrated into PlayStation Studios so Sony can have more control of the developer. Previously, it allowed the team a lot of freedom, but after waves of layoffs, it will become “more part of PlayStation Studios, and integration is proceeding”. Bungie also has Marathon to put out, but it too has been hit with controversy following allegations of plagiarism.

Lin Tao did at least have some more positive comments to share on other parts of PlayStation business. “Helldivers 2, which was also released for Xbox in August of this year, is doing extremely well, not only attracting new users on Xbox, but also seeing increased engagement from existing users on PS5 and PC. This resulted in a significant increase in sales of the title year on year.”

MLB The Show 25 is said to be performing “well”, while Ghost of Yotei was called a “major hit like its predecessor” after selling 3.3 million copies since launch. “Building on this recent progress, we aim to strengthen our studio, business, and expand our IP franchises through continuous learning and improvement,” Tao concluded.

[source thisweekinvideogames.com]