Sony is not ready to abandon Marathon just yet.
After months of players using Steam numbers as proof that Bungie’s new sci-fi extraction shooter was already cooked, Sony has told investors that the game still has a future. That makes Marathon a very different case from Concord, the PlayStation live-service disaster that was pulled shockingly fast after launch.
During Sony’s latest earnings call, CFO Lin Tao said Bungie’s overall game portfolio performed below expectations. Because of that, Sony revised its business plan and wrote down the value of Bungie-related fixed assets, excluding goodwill.
The impairment came in at around $560 million, bringing Sony’s total downgrade tied to its $3.6 billion Bungie acquisition to about $765 million for the year.
That is a huge number, and it does not exactly scream smooth sailing. Part of the pain likely comes from Destiny 2, which has seen its player base drop after a weaker expansion last year and a newer content update being delayed by three months.
But Marathon is clearly part of the conversation too. This is Bungie’s first new shooter IP in more than a decade, so expectations were always going to be heavy. Sony has not shared official first-month sales or total player numbers, though some data firms estimate Marathon has reached somewhere between 1 million and 2 million players.
Here is the important bit: Sony is not treating Marathon like Concord.
Instead of shutting it down, Sony says player reception has been strong. The company pointed to a Metacritic score of 82, over 90% positive Steam user reviews, and strong retention among players who are already in. In other words, Marathon may not be massive yet, but Sony believes the people who do like it are sticking around.
That matters a lot for Malaysia and SEA players because extraction shooters are still a bit niche here compared with battle royales, tactical shooters, and mobile esports. Games like Valorant, MLBB, PUBG Mobile, and CS have very clear social loops. You log in, squad up, grind ranked, rage a bit, repeat. Marathon’s more punishing PvP extraction format asks more from players, and that can make it harder to sell to casual friend groups.
For Malaysian PC and PS5 players, the question is simple: is Marathon worth investing time into if the community stays small? Live-service games need momentum. If matchmaking gets sweaty, queues get slower, or new players feel like they are just loot delivery boys for veterans, the game can become a closed circle very fast.
Sony’s plan is to keep supporting the core crowd while trying to grow the audience. Bungie has already shared a light roadmap for the first two seasons, and creative director Julia Nardin has said the team has story beats planned years ahead. That does not guarantee Marathon will survive long enough to hit every arc, but it shows Bungie is still building for the long game.
The challenge now is tuning. Marathon has to keep the hardcore extraction fans happy without making the door too painful for everyone else. More content will help, but the real test is whether Bungie can make losses feel tense instead of exhausting, and wins feel rewarding enough to pull players back every week.
For now, Marathon is not dead. It is bruised, expensive, and probably underperforming versus Sony’s original dreams, but it still has something Concord never really got: a committed core audience and a platform holder willing to give it more time.
Source: Kotaku