Is Bungie Sony’s Worst Ever Acquisition After $765 Million Write-Down?

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Sony recently announced a $765 million loss related to its investment in Bungie, leading many to wonder if this is the company’s most unsuccessful acquisition to date.

This involves a $204 million loss in value reported late last year, indicating the developer is now worth significantly less than the $3.6 billion paid for it in 2022.

It’s important to understand exactly what’s happening here.

This isn’t a direct loss of money for the company, but rather a decrease in the value of something they own. The Japanese company is reducing the recorded value of this purchase because it hasn’t performed as well as expected, and isn’t likely to improve soon.

This recent loss is especially noteworthy because it happened after the launch of Marathon, which hasn’t done as well as hoped.

Although the company hasn’t shared official sales figures, data from sources like SteamDB suggests the game hasn’t been a huge success. It also wasn’t featured in the PlayStation Store’s top-selling games for April, despite launching in March.

Did Sony Overpay for Bungie?

The recent losses suggest Sony paid far too much for Bungie.

Michael Pachter, a prominent and often controversial industry analyst at Wedbush Securities, voiced this opinion when the acquisition was made public.

He called the purchase a desperate move, explaining it was a reaction to Microsoft’s massive, almost $70 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard, which happened around the same period.

He said:

Looking at it comparatively, Electronic Arts purchased Respawn Entertainment around three or four years ago for $700 million, and Respawn had about 400 developers at the time. Respawn now brings in $700 million in revenue annually. Bungie, on the other hand, generates around $200 million in revenue. Therefore, I believe Sony paid too much for Bungie.

Part of Bungie’s value for Sony was not just its games, but also its live service expertise.

Destiny 2 has lost many daily players since the main story ended with The Final Shape in 2024, and the game’s developers are finding it difficult to keep players engaged.

Marathon is now finding it difficult to reach 15,000 concurrent players on Steam, only a month after it was released. Although we don’t have exact sales figures for consoles, it appears the game sold best on PC and is currently attracting most of its players there.

Live Service Woes

Despite Bungie’s experience, Sony’s attempt to create ongoing, live service games hasn’t been successful.

Concord quickly shut down after its launch, as it wasn’t able to attract and keep enough players to succeed. Its developer, Firewalk Studios – often considered one of Sony’s least successful acquisitions – was then closed down when they couldn’t come up with a way to save the game.

As a result, several projects have been cancelled, including a live service game based on God of War that was being developed by the team behind the remake. This also led to the closure of that development team itself.

Other projects, like Fairgames and Horizon Hunter’s Gathering, are struggling to gain positive attention from players. Fairgames received harsh feedback during its closed beta testing, and Horizon Hunter’s Gathering has been consistently criticized for its visual style and how different it is from the main series games.

It seems PlayStation recently cancelled The Last of Us Factions, a live service game fans were actually looking forward to. Reports suggest the decision came after Bungie, a partner company, shared their feedback.

Although the Washington team only told Naughty Dog that the project would be expensive to keep going, many believe the studio is responsible for its cancellation. This is especially frustrating because the game seemed nearly finished and promised to be excellent.

It’s Going to Take Years to Turn Things Around

The big problem for Bungie right now is that it’s hard to see where the next win will come from.

Players who have tried Marathon tend to love it, but its challenging, high-stakes gameplay makes it hard for the game to attract a wide audience. While it can likely maintain a dedicated player base, it probably won’t become a mainstream hit.

Honestly, things haven’t been great with Destiny 2 since The Final Shape came out. It feels like the game is losing steam, and even a Star Wars expansion couldn’t really fix things or bring players back.

Although the studio has reportedly started working on Destiny 3, with typical game development timelines, it probably won’t be released for another five to six years – meaning we can expect it sometime in the early 2030s.

Sony has removed Team LFG from Bungie’s oversight due to concerns about how the studio was being managed. While their game, Gummy Bears, is still planned for release as a Sony-published title, Team LFG will now operate as an independent studio.

Is Bungie Sony’s Worst Acquisition?

Considering how much Sony spent on Bungie, what they hoped to achieve with the purchase, and the significant financial losses already reported, it’s clear this has been Sony’s least successful acquisition to date.

While companies like Firewalk and potentially Haven (depending on Fairgames) are also contenders, the amount of money invested in them is probably small compared to the billions spent on Bungie.

Sony’s purchases, such as Bluepoint Games, haven’t been successful, but they seemed like good ideas at the time. It appears Sony simply didn’t handle these acquisitions well.

Honestly, I’m really curious to see what Bungie does next. I don’t think they’re going to disappear or anything, but it’s pretty obvious they need to shake things up and make some big changes to get back on track.

Considering Sony has around 850 employees in a very costly location, it’s hard to imagine how the studio can continue operating as it is. Unfortunately, this probably means layoffs are coming.

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2026-05-08 19:08