Sony Says It Will Keep Working to Improve Marathon, but Looks to Saros and Marvel’s Wolverine for First Party Growth

Sony’s latest financial disclosures have made one thing much clearer about Bungie and Marathon: the company sees the studio’s portfolio as an underperformer, but it is not walking away from the game. During the latest earnings discussion tied to Sony’s FY2025 results, chief financial officer Lin Tao said Bungie’s title portfolio “did not reach our expectations,” and confirmed Sony revised its business plan downward and impaired fixed assets related to Bungie other than goodwill. Those remarks came alongside the already disclosed Bungie related impairment losses in Sony’s official results materials, reinforcing that the company now views the acquisition as materially weaker than originally expected.

The numbers behind that are significant. Sony’s FY2025 presentation shows ¥120.1 billion in impairment losses against Bungie’s intangible and other assets across the fiscal year, including a large ¥88.6 billion hit in the fourth quarter, while Game and Network Services results were also affected by ¥18.3 billion in expenses related to correcting previously capitalized development costs. In practical terms, that means Sony has formally marked down Bungie’s value in a major way, and the gaming business would have looked much stronger without that damage.

Even so, Sony is not talking about Marathon as a title it plans to abandon. Lin Tao also said player reception to the game has been strong, pointing to a Metacritic score of 82, more than 90% positive player reviews on Steam, and strong retention style engagement metrics. She added that Sony intends to improve the game’s performance by retaining highly engaged core users through additional content, further gameplay improvements, and efforts to expand the user base. That language is important because it signals support rather than retreat, even after Bungie’s broader financial disappointment.

That does not mean Sony sees Marathon as the main driver of first party growth going forward. In the same discussion, Tao said Sony expects first party software contribution in FY2026 to exceed FY2025, and specifically highlighted Saros, which launched in April, and Marvel’s Wolverine, which Sony says is scheduled for September 2026. In other words, Sony’s forward first party revenue story is currently being framed more around major single player or premium first party releases than around Bungie’s live service recovery efforts.

That positioning says a lot about how Sony is balancing risk. Marathon still has value as an ongoing live service project, especially if its community remains engaged and the game can improve over time. But when Sony talks about the titles it expects to lift first party earnings, it is placing more visible confidence in Housemarque and Insomniac than in Bungie. That is not especially surprising given Bungie’s underperformance, but it does clarify where Sony currently sees its most dependable first party upside.

From a strategic perspective, Sony’s stance is fairly pragmatic. The company has already absorbed a heavy financial blow tied to Bungie, so abruptly cutting off Marathon now would only deepen the perception that the acquisition failed without giving the title a fair chance to stabilize. Supporting the game with more content and gameplay improvements is the rational move, at least in the near term. At the same time, Sony is clearly not betting its FY2026 first party growth story on a comeback narrative for Bungie. Instead, it is leaning on more traditional marquee releases to do the heavy lifting.

For Bungie fans, there is at least some reassurance in this. Sony’s wording suggests Marathon still has runway, and the company is willing to invest in improving its long term performance rather than treating it as a write off. But the bigger message from the earnings call is that Sony now sees Bungie as a problem to manage, while Saros and Marvel’s Wolverine are being positioned as the cleaner path to stronger first party revenue.

What do you think, can Marathon still grow into a stronger long term live service success, or is Sony right to place its bigger FY2026 hopes on Saros and Marvel’s Wolverine?