Destiny 2 is underperforming against expectations after its acquisition, Sony CFO Lin Tao says in the company’s latest earnings call.
Tao explains that, “Regarding Destiny 2, partially due to 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, Inc.” A graph shown in the call also shows that, while sales and operating income are nearly ¥42 billion / ~$272 million / ~£207 million better off than at the same point last year, Sony has recorded ¥31.5 billion / ~$204 million / ~£155 million in impairment losses against Bungie’s intangible assets.
This means that Sony believes that Bungie’s value has decreased by this much. Intangible assets include patents, trademarks, and goodwill-the company’s brand and reputation. However, according to the report, Sony does believe that this impairment loss is a “non-recurring item,” and the operating income forecast for August is unchanged, despite Bungie’s loss and the impact of US tariffs.
Wowzer, and they said the analysis on CoD losses was bad. They better pray Marathon makes Arc Raiders look like Hyperscape because now they have a huge order to deal with.
I swear Bungie just pulled off the best scam when they got purchased by Sony. They were never worth the price Sony paid, and the studio has just been downhill ever since.
Imagine being one of the developers at any of the studios which had their games cancelled because of Bungie leadership’s review… only to see what’s happened with Sony and Bungie over the last two years. Destiny 2 is kind of a perfect analogy for the state of Playstation as a whole, no matter how much the media want to cover for them…
Factions was right there. That could have been made by devs from Bungie, Firewalk or Haven. But instead Sony cancelled their proven multiplayer game and laid off devs who could have made it into a success.
What are the odds that Sony cut their losses with Bungie if Marathon doesn’t deliver? Feels like it’s been nothing but headaches from them for some time now.
They have been starting down that road already. There has been a large amount of layoffs and numerous rounds at Bungie after being acquired by Sony and failing to meet objectives. There was also a nontrivial amount of employees moved from Bungie to other positions inside of Sony and PlayStation Studios. The new ideas and projects have been vacumed out of Bungie and put into a new studio to develop and work on. The old Bungie upper level management and board has been replaced by Sony.
Sony has closed 13 studios over the last 13 years (verifiable fact, despite the media’s constant glazing)…it’s now about to be year 14 so what’s another studio to Sony at this point?
I swear, if the idiots in the media had a clue, or a care for the developers they supposedly care about, they would actually be holding Sony to account. We’ve literally seen time and time again, even if you just look at two companies - MS and AMD, that public pressure WILL change a company’s course or decisions; THIS is why I’ve refused to shut up about it over the years and for all the “it’s just gaming” luddites, tell that to the thousands of devs that have lost their jobs at Sony and everywhere else in the industry.
