Sony CFO Says Destiny 2 Has Failed to Meet Sony's Expectations - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 11 November 2025 / 1,885 Views
Sony CFO Lin Tao in the company's earnings summary webcast revealed Destiny 2 has failed to meet expectations that were set when developer Bungie was acquired in 2022.
"Regarding Destiny 2, partially due to changes in the competitive environment, the level of sales and user engagement have not reached the expectations we had at the time of the acquisition of Bungie," said Tao.
"While we will continue to make improvements, we downwardly revised the business projection for the time being and recorded an impairment loss against a portion of the assets at Bungie."
Tao added other first-party live service games, Helldivers 2 and MLB The Show 25, continue to perform well.
"On the other hand, Helldivers 2, which was also released for Xbox in August of this year, is doing extremely well, not only attracting new users on Xbox, but also seeing increased engagement from existing users on PS5 and PC," she said. "This resulted in a significant increase in sales of the title year-on-year.
"MLB The Show 25, released in March, also continued to perform well during the quarter."
Bungie has faced layoffs since it was acquired in 2022, along with its CEO Pete Parsons stepping down in August and General Manager of Destiny 2 and Chief Development Officer Justin Truman taking over as the new studio head.
The next game from Bungie, the science-fiction player-versus-player extraction shooter Marathon, was originally set to launch on September 23, however, it was delayed due to feedback following the Alpha playtest.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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This shouldn’t surprise anyone. In 2024, Bungie released the conclusion to the story arch that started in 2014. It was the games Avengers: Endgame moment.
Now, Bungie started working on Marathon that they didn’t have another plan for Destiny. It’s a natural decline that can really only be resolved with a Destiny 3.
This doesn't really tell us anything, because we don't know what they were expecting from the game.
It's an eight-year-old game. What do they expect?
Kinda obvious based on what they paid for the company, complete waste when you consider they purchase Insomniac for $250mil and Bungie $3.6billion. A desperation move to make it seem like they were competing with MS in their spending to what? Appease share holders?
3.6bil could have paid for 10 new studios with 200 mil budget each... with 1.6billion to spare.
When you consider how much money Rockstar make off of GTA online, you can't blame Sony for wanting to try
Try for live service? Sure but to buy Bungie for that much? I'm just not sure that is worth it. Destiny is not GTA.
The thing is, they don't need any more studios to make standard games for them. They've got all the biggest publishers on their console, including MS now. What other live service studio could have been bought instead for cheaper?
But Shareholders wants growth, so they need to see action how Sony will keep growing (while honestly any growth is already almost a miracle). Saying you invest in live service titles was one way how to do it but now they just going to embrace the Multiplatform/PC strategy more.
Considering that Bungie was a big reason for putting Microsoft and Xbox on the map with the OG Xbox and was highly instrumental in the Xbox 360's success, their valuation at the time is pretty expected.
Unfortunately, prior to Sony's buyout, Microsoft spun up 343i which saw an exodus of developers from Bungie over to Microsoft.
Sadly in the end we ended up with two average developers rather than a singular amazing one.
Bungie of then was not Bungie of when Sony bought them, let alone what they are now.
It's just like a lot of that stupid throwing around money spree from these companies, Sony was sensible until this, buying up their partners so MS didn't do it from under them but Bungie? It was never going to be worth it. Not for that sum of money.
Thats why ryan got the sack. He panicked at the call of duty sale to xbox
Another example of the live service model not working. But they'll still keep trying anyways
Destiny 2 made tons of money though. Furthermore any struggles Bungie had in recent times was more a consequence of some poor choices than a fundamental failure of the live service model.
But the point is still valid, even the biggest successes can still return to failures in the live service space. Hopefully Sony continues to distance as far away as it can from that model.
A success doesn't become a failure when it no longer makes as much money. It doesn't erase all the profit it made before if it is no longer sustainable.
Destiny 2 was in the top 12 grossing titles on steam every year since it's release there, up until last year. Maybe this year it's only in the second tier, who knows, but that won't suddenly mean it's a failure. Being in the top 30 grossing games on a platform is still better than 90%+ of games.
Meaning that success was almost entirely outside of Sony´s ownership; with that revenue probably being used for other projects, salaries, among many other expenses. So yeah, it can be a failure, especially when sony splashed 3.7 billion dollars for Bungie and all they have to show is Destiny 2´s decline, Marathon crisis and a whole bunch of live services cancelations.
What does that have to do with the idea that the Live Service model doesn’t work?
Literally an article on the news feed right now about how Live Service game Arc Raiders has sold 4million copies.
We might not like it but a well made/promoted live service will make these companies bank, so they'll keep trying.
Arc Raiders also used A.I. Sony knows what to now.
Destiny 2 has been a huge success though. One of the greatest successes in the history of gaming. It's an example of the live service model working extremely well.
Too may gaas splitting the players apart destiny ain't hot like it was back those days lol
It took this long for people to realize Destiny is garbage smh
I mean, I do not know what were the expectations to start with to be honest.
