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

Sales, user interaction have not met expectations

Sony’s $3.6 billion acquisition of Destiny 2 developer Bungie has, in every practical sense, been an absolute failure, and the PS5, PS4 hardware manufacturer seems to acknowledge this at this juncture.

Having acquired the studio to support its venture into the live-service realm, Sony has scrapped several multiplayer initiatives and has only achieved success with Helldivers 2. Destiny 2, following the conclusion of its primary narrative with The Final Shape DLC, has also experienced extremely challenging times, losing players and generally facing negative sentiment around the game at a significant low.

Consequent to these shortcomings, Sony has reported an “impairment loss concerning a portion of the assets at Bungie”.

Lin Tao, the CFO and Corporate Executive Officer at Sony, disclosed this remark during the Q&A segment of today’s Q2 financial call for fiscal year 2025. Tao’s complete statement reads:

Concerning Destiny 2, partially due to shifts in the competitive landscape, the sales and user engagement levels have not achieved the expectations we had at the time of acquiring Bungie. While we will persist in implementing improvements, we have revised our business outlook downward for the moment, and recorded an impairment loss related to a portion of the assets at Bungie.

A couple of months back, it was confirmed Bungie will be incorporated into PlayStation Studios so Sony can gain greater oversight of the developer. Previously, it granted the team considerable independence, but following multiple rounds of layoffs, it will become “more integrated into PlayStation Studios, and this process is ongoing”. Bungie also has Marathon to release, yet it too has been plagued by controversy due to plagiarism allegations.

Lin Tao did at least have some more favorable remarks to share about other aspects of the PlayStation business. “Helldivers 2, which was also launched for Xbox in August of this year, is performing remarkably well, not only drawing new users on Xbox but also experiencing heightened engagement from existing customers on PS5 and PC. This has led to a substantial rise in sales of the title year on year.”

MLB The Show 25 is said to be doing “well”, while Ghost of Yotei has been described as a “major success like its predecessor” after selling 3.3 million copies since its debut. “Building on this recent success, we intend to strengthen our studio, business, and expand our IP franchises through ongoing learning and enhancement,” Tao concluded.