Sony Says Bungie Has Failed To Meet Expectations, As Destiny 2 Hit’s A New Low Player Count On Steam

It’s been a little over four years since Sony purchased Bungie. In that time, there have been layoffs affecting nearly 400 employees, delays of both Destiny 2’s The Final Shape DLC and Marathon, and other woes. Recently, Sony stated that Bungie would become part of PlayStation Studios. What that means is that Bungie is losing more control.

This decision didn’t come out of nowhere, however, as noted by IGN, Destiny 2’s player count keeps dropping, with the shooter hitting a new low peak concurrent player count of a little over 13,000. And Marathon is still on the horizon. Basically, the developer isn’t bringing in the cash Sony hoped it would when they purchased the company. According to the latest financial report, Destiny 2’s “underperformance” has resulted in a $204.2 million impairment charge.

One of the interesting things IGN points out about this whole problem is that former Bungie employees have asserted that Bungie “misrepresented its finances” during the Sony acquisition, and that had Sony not purchased the developer of the free-to-play shooter, it was facing “insolvency”. If this is true, it makes sense as a reason that Bungie hasn’t been able to meet the goals set forth by Sony.

The good news is that Sony hasn’t completely given up on the developer. Rather, Sony’s chief financial officer Lin Tao notes that one of the reasons for Destiny 2’s poor financial performance is the current “competitive environment”, stating that “the level of sales and user engagement has not reached the expectations we had at the time of acquisition”. The current solution is to revise the company’s projections to better meet what they know now. So, they’re not just washing their hands of the developer.