Marathon is out today, and Sony’s big $3 billion acquisition is riding on its success.
Back when the Japanese giant acquired Bungie in 2022, it felt like a strange fit. Despite its work on Destiny, the studio is best known for Halo – a tentpole Microsoft franchise.
Of course, the industry has changed so much in the years since that Halo: Campaign Evolved will now release on the PS5 (unless the Pure Xbox editors get their way). But at the time, it was a shock to see the Washington studio added to the PlayStation family.
We suspect the platform holder was feeling antsy about Xbox’s unprecedented spending spree, which had already seen it purchase publishing powerhouses Bethesda and Activision. The company was also trying to improve its live service output, and Bungie was seen as a crown jewel that could share knowledge with all its teams.
But it’s been a turbulent road to Marathon’s release, with CFO Lin Tao confirming an “impairment loss” on the studio as recently as 2025, due to the flagging performance of Destiny 2. Layoffs ensued, and even one incubated development group, Team LFG, were split from Bungie and installed under the PS Studios hierarchy instead.
We also can’t write this article without mentioning the Art Raiders saga, which saw some of the assets in Marathon stolen from an independent artist. That situation has since been resolved to the original creator’s satisfaction, but remains a mark against the game.
But Bungie has rebounded resolutely. Public opinion of Marathon, initially so negative around the time of its originally intended September release date, has transformed. Among the improvements, the studio has incorporated proximity chat and massively polished the title’s unique presentation.
Sony needs this game to be a success, and a lot is riding on it. Bungie was bought to lead its live service initiative, so this is the crown jewel in its catalogue.
It’ll be looking for big launch day numbers, but crucially, strong player retention. The upside is that the studio has already announced some extremely robust post-release plans, which shows the studio has been thinking long-term with this project.
There’ll be a huge emphasis on Steam concurrent player numbers over the next few days, as it’s one of the few meaningful data points we get for games these days. The recent Server Slam started strong, attracting over 140k simultaneous players on PC at its peak, but faded fast.
There’s many reasons for that, we suspect. Some players may have hopped on just to try it out, before bouncing ahead of the release date. Others may not have wanted to commit, knowing their progress won’t transfer to the full release.
But it’s always worth remembering that Steam is just one piece of the puzzle, and both the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of the game will also be contributing to its success. Both Bungie and Sony will obviously be monitoring the bigger picture.
We suspect success for Marathon won’t be determined on day one, but as it evolves into its later seasons. If it can retain players and crucially attract a steady stream of revenue, then Sony will be satisfied.
But this is a big bet, and a lot is riding on the game’s success.