Destiny 2 hasn't been as successful as Sony hoped when it acquired developer Bungie, as the company's chief financial officer now admits that neither sales nor user engagement have "reached to the expectation we had" at the time of the $3.6 billion buyout in 2022.
In Sony's latest financial results presentation, the company mentions recording "impairment losses against a portion of Bungie, Inc.'s intangible and other assets in connection with Destiny 2," for a total of 31.5 billion yen, or over $204 million at the current exchange rate.
Sony's chief financial officer Lin Tao elaborates on this further in the financial call. "Regarding Destiny 2, partially due to the changes in the competitive environment, the level of sales and user engagement have not reached the expectation we had at the time of the acquisition of Bungie," she explains.
"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."
It's fair to say that things haven't been great for Destiny 2 lately. Although a new expansion for the game is due out next month, third-party tools indicate that the shooter's player count across PC has been steadily falling in recent months, even reaching record-low peaks. That comes alongside complaints from fans about the game's missing, long-promised roadmap, not to mention the plans to remove the Edge of Fate expansion's Unstable Cores currency following backlash.
Bungie also has a new shooter coming out, but things haven't been smooth sailing there, either. Marathon was delayed earlier this year, not long after public backlash when an indie artist alleged that the shooter's alpha tests included assets lifted from her own work without pay. Bungie soon confirmed that it was "conducting a thorough review of our in-game assets, specifically those done by the former Bungie artist."
In the same new earnings call, Sony confirms that "we're still working on" Marathon, and "we are fully dedicated to launching the title as scheduled. Yes, we assume that we will launch this within this year, and that is included in the forecast."
In the meantime, be sure to check out our roundup of new games releasing this year and beyond.
