In a new earnings call, Sony discussed many aspects of its PlayStation business, with one bit of news somewhat eyebrow raising. That was a frank discussion about what’s happening with Bungie, and how PlayStation is going to take a more heavy-handed role than they originally said they were at the time of purchase.
Bungie has made a big deal out of the fact that despite being bought for $3.6 billion by Sony, they would retain their “independence” as a company with their own leadership in place. Now, that’s slipping away due to problems at the company and the studio’s performance.
CFO Lin Tao talked about this on the call:
“About the governance of Bungie, at the time of acquisition, we were offering a very independent environment, so that was one way of thinking,” Tao said. “However, we have gone through structural reform, as we announced last year, so this independence is getting lighter, and Bungie is shifting into a role which is becoming more part of PlayStation Studios, and integration is proceeding. In the long term, you can see this as an ongoing process. So the direction is to become part of PlayStation Studios.”
The past few years has seen the mass departure of many members of Bungie leadership, Destiny creative heads Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy, former Destiny 2 game director Joe Blackburn and former Marathon director Chris Barrett, the last of whom was forced out after a misconduct investigation, and he’s currently suing Sony and Bungie over what he says he’s still owed as part of the Bungie sale.
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As I understand it, there’s a sense that even more Bungie leadership, perhaps even its most senior executives, are likely going to depart the company within a year or two when aspects of their Sony deal go through and they’re able to leave with millions. Insider reporting has said that unless Bungie hit certain metrics, that PlayStation leadership would take over. That appears to be what’s about to happen.
Is “becoming a part of PlayStation” going to be good for a franchise like Destiny and the upcoming Marathon? Many players seem to think so, given how poor much of Bungie leadership has been. Then again, PlayStation has not exactly proven themselves adept at making internal live service games, with high-profile cancellations like The Last of Us Factions and the launch of Concord, quite literally one of the biggest bombs in industry history, if not the biggest. How much can you trust a company that genuinely believed Concord was going to be a huge IP for them going forward?
What exactly changes if Bungie is folded into PlayStation studios is unclear. This does not seem to indicate that Bungie would be fully disbanded, at least not yet. Destiny 2 has shifted into a much more content-lite era now that the company is half the size it was a few years ago. Marathon debuted in early previews with a thud. Sony says that game will still be out before March 2026, but as I’ve said before, I think there’s too much wrong with the core of Marathon for it to ever be a success, no matter what reworks it’s getting in six months.
We can’t say for certain whether or not this is a good thing. I’m not sure what Sony leadership might do to attempt to take Destiny back to its old highs or make sure Marathon is a hit. In my opinion, the way forward would be to let Bungie take a break from endless live content for a spell and actually make a Destiny 3, but that seems unlikely, as Sony wants to keep extracting as much cash as consistently as possible from the franchise. We’ll likely hear more details soon.
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