“In our Studio Business, earnings from Bungie’s title portfolio did not reach our expectations, so we downwardly revised our business plan and impaired the full amount of the fixed assets related to Bungie except for goodwill,” said Tao. “Player receptions to Marathon is strong, with the game receiving a Metacritic score of 82 and more than 90% of the player reviews on Steam being positive. Engagement metrics such as retention also remain at a high level.”

As for what future plans entail, Tao has said that there will be an emphasis on improving Marathon‘s overall performance with its audience through the release of more content, improvements to gameplay systems, and the acquisition of a larger player base.

“Going forward, we aim to improve the performance of the game by working to retain highly engaged core users through the introduction of additional content, further improvements in the gameplay experience, and expansion of the user base,” she said.

In its earnings report, Sony had reported that, despite a 12 percent increase in year-on-year revenue, acquiring Bungie led it to lose $560 million in the most recent quarter, totalling up to around $765 million for the fiscal year. Calling them “impairment losses”, the company doesn’t expect the losses to continue, with its forecast for the following year including a 30 percent increase in revenue.

It is worth noting that neither Sony nor Bungie has revealed any official performance milestones or player numbers for Marathon. Analytics firm Ampere, however, has estimated that around 2.2 million users have played Marathon in its launch month. Out of this, 1.1 million were noted as being on PC, while 660,000 were on PS5, and 525,000 were on Xbox Series X/S.

Marathon‘s creative director, Julia Nardin, has said that the company has plans for the extraction shooter for at least the next few years. These plans haven’t been set in stone, however, and Nardin said that the studio wants to bring players in on the content plans because it’s “part of the magic of playing a live service game.”

To further help with getting more players into Marathon, Nardin has said that, unlike what Bungie did with the campaign of Destiny 2 with the release of its Beyond Light expansion back in 2020, Marathon will continue to have all of its story content available. This way, those who jump into the game a year from now will still be able to experience the complete story.

“It’s also important that players can jump into Marathon at any time,” said Nardin. “They’ll always be able to uncover the mysteries of Tau Ceti’s past while experiencing its present. We want every season to be a new entry point, and for new players to be able to understand what’s going on regardless of how long we’ve all been running.”

Marathon is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. Read our review for more details.

Interestingly, Sony’s forecasts for the following year include a 30 percent increase in revenue, which the company has noted will be helped by the “absence of impairment losses” in Bungie’s assets.

Bungie’s latest title, Marathon, has been the subject of quite a bit of analysis, especially when it comes to its sales performance for PlayStation. A report shortly after its release indicated that around 1.2 million of its copies had been sold, resulting in a gross revenue of $55 million. However, most of the players were believed to be on Steam, with an estimated 800,000 copies sold on PC. PS5 ranked in second place, with 217,000 copies sold.

“Marathon is technically a first-party Sony title, so seeing the home console struggle to break 20% of the volume is a notable data point for the ongoing platform-agnostic debate,” wrote head of market analysis at Alinea Analytics, Rhys Elliott. “PlayStation Studios online games will almost certainly continue being multiplatform (despite Sony reportedly pulling back on PC releases).”

More recently, Ampere has estimated that Marathon was played by around 2.2 million players in its launch month, with 1.1 million players being on PC, and 660,000 using PS5.

It is worth noting that, despite the massive fall off of its PC player base, down from an all-time peak of 88,337 concurrent players to a 24-hour peak of 15,178 (via SteamDB), the extraction shooter has continued to see positive reactions from its players. Its low estimated sales on PS5 could also be down to Sony’s lack of marketing.

Former Square Enix business director Jacob Navok believes that this lack of advertising effort on Sony’s part reveals the lack of faith that the company has in Bungie.

“Nearly 2k loss in peak in 24 hours,” he wrote. “Brutal. I had thought the floor was 15k, could be looking at a 10k floor.” He went on to point to the fact that Sony hasn’t been using its marketing capabilities with the PS5 dashboard to push Marathon. “Sony owns a ton of digital estate on the PlayStation dashboards to push Marathon,” he wrote. “Its lack of marketing push to support the numbers speaks to the lack of faith from the platform holder.”

Despite this, Bungie hasn’t given off any indications that it will be slowing development on Marathon down. Earlier this week, creative director Julia Nardin said that the team continues to have a long-term plan for the game, but it also wants to get players involved in these decisions, since it’s “part of the magic of playing a live service game.”

She also reiterated the fact that Marathon has been designed to be quite welcoming for players to jump in at any time, with the studio making sure that missions important to the story will continue to be available in the game, unlike Destiny 2‘s infamous content vaulting controversy.

Marathon is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, take a look at our review.

While creative director Julia Nardin didn’t really comment on the same to GamesRadar, she noted that the team knows “where we want to take the story over the next few years,” even if it’s not “completely ‘locked in’ because it’s important to us that our players be able to help shape it.” That input is apparently “part of the magic of playing a live service game.”

While the story of Tau Ceti IV and the events that occurred before the player’s “activation” remain locked, the overarching backstory will continue to evolve “in ways that are informed by its past and a future that excites our players.” Best of all, it seems the team wants to avoid Destiny 2’s content vaulting issues that resulted in the removal of pre-Beyond Light activities and campaigns from the game, making it difficult for new players to jump in.

“It’s also important that players can jump into Marathon at any time. They’ll always be able to uncover the mysteries of Tau Ceti’s past while experiencing its present. We want every season to be a new entry point, and for new players to be able to understand what’s going on regardless of how long we’ve all been running,” says Nardin.

For now, it’s very much early days for Marathon. Season 1 introduced Cryo Archive, an end-game zone where players would run into a familiar race from the OG trilogy. As if in response to these incursions, the UESC will have increased security in Season 2: NIGHTFALL, with Dire Marsh receiving a new nighttime variant. There will also be a new Runner Shell, Contracts, weapons, something called The Cradle for customizing one’s stats and the long-awaited Duos queue.

Nothing is known about Season 3, currently “REDACTED,” and you have to wonder if it’s because Bungie is taking on feedback to shape things accordingly. Surely there will be more to explore in the titular ship, right?

The last time we saw any player figures for Marathon came from Alinea Analytics, who estimated sales of around 1.2 million copies of the extraction shooter, making $55 million in gross revenue for Bungie. Of this figure, 800,000 copies were believed to be sold through Steam, with PS5 taking second place with 217,000 copies, and Xbox Series X/S taking third with 133,000 copies.

Interestingly, both estimates for the shooter’s commercial performance have put the PS5 in second place, despite Marathon essentially being a first-party game for Sony since it owns Bungie.

Commenting on Marathon‘s concurrent player figures, former Square Enix Holdings business director Jacob Navok took to social media to note that Sony’s lack of marketing for the title is an indicator of an overall lack of faith in Bungie.

“Nearly 2k loss in peak in 24 hours,” he wrote. “Brutal. I had thought the floor was 15k, could be looking at a 10k floor.” He went on to point to the fact that Sony hasn’t been using its marketing capabilities with the PS5 dashboard to push Marathon. “Sony owns a ton of digital estate on the PlayStation dashboards to push Marathon,” he wrote. “Its lack of marketing push to support the numbers speaks to the lack of faith from the platform holder.”

Another social media user responded by bringing up the fact that Marathon has been topping the most-played charts on Xbox Series X/S since its release. Keeping this in mind, they posited that Microsoft would have done a better job with marketing than Sony.

“The #1 most played game by hours on Xbox this past month was Marathon,” they wrote. “If [Microsoft] owned it, it would be the biggest game since Halo. Sony doesn’t even try. MS would have it front page, and on Game Pass indefinitely. Marketing was non-existent. The least they could do is free for PS5.”

The player figures also paint an interesting picture for Sony’s multiplatform release ambitions going forward. The company has reportedly decided to scale back on its decision to bring single-player games to other consoles. However, it remains keen on releasing multiplayer titles on as many platforms as possible to ensure player numbers remain high.

Marathon is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, and Bungie has continued to support the title with extensive post-launch updates. Among these has been a nerf to the WSTR Shotgun, which was previously two-shotting players through their stronger shields, making it the best choice for close-quarters engagement. For more details on Marathon, check out our review.

“Nearly 2k loss in peak in 24 hours,” he wrote. “Brutal. I had thought the floor was 15k, could be looking at a 10k floor.” He went on to point to the fact that Sony hasn’t been using its marketing capabilities with the PS5 dashboard to push Marathon. “Sony owns a ton of digital estate on the PlayStation dashboards to push Marathon,” he wrote. “Its lack of marketing push to support the numbers speaks to the lack of faith from the platform holder.”

Interestingly, another social media user – DomRock – replied by noting that the most-played game on Xbox throughout April has been Marathon. They also said that the game would likely enjoy better marketing if Bungie were owned by Microsoft rather than Sony.

“The #1 most played game by hours on Xbox this past month was Marathon,” they wrote. “If [Microsoft] owned it, it would be the biggest game since Halo. Sony doesn’t even try. MS would have it front page, and on Game Pass indefinitely. Marketing was non-existent. The least they could do is free for PS5.”

A report from last month indicated that, since its release, Marathon had sold around 1.2 million copies at the time. According to Alinea Analytics, the game has made Bungie around $55 million in gross revenue. When it comes to platform splits, Steam seems to have been the best-performing for Marathon, with an estimated 800,000 copies sold. The same estimates put PS5 in second place with 217,000 copies, and Xbox Series X/S in third with 133,000 copies. Analyst Rhys Elliot believes that a first-party release by a Sony-owned studio not being able to break the 20 percent mark on PS5 is a “notable data point.”

“Marathon is technically a first-party Sony title, so seeing the home console struggle to break 20% of the volume is a notable data point for the ongoing platform-agnostic debate,” wrote Elliott. “PlayStation Studios online games will almost certainly continue being multiplatform (despite Sony reportedly pulling back on PC releases).”

The analyst has pointed to Marathon‘s player acquisition being slower than that of another notable PvPvE extraction shooter, ARC Raiders. A key problem has seemingly been UI/UX issues, which led to a 49 percent increase in sales following Marathon‘s server slam.

“Bungie could have had more time to fix the onboarding process had the beta happened earlier,” wrote Elliott, “but Marathon launched three days after the beta finished. These factors limited the launch sales quite a bit, I reckon.”

For more details about Marathon, check out its latest update from earlier this month. Also, take a look at our review.

Noting that it’s become a “dominant option and is eclipsing a lot of the other short-range options that exist in the game,” Ziegler said that the change would ensure that it can no longer down an enemy with Blue rarity shields (or above) with two short-range hits. It’s still very useful for two-shotting those with Green rarity shields, so you can still farm Free Kit Runners for Contracts.

Ziegler notes that this change should “force a reload in scenarios where the target has a blue shield, allowing for some more counterplay in these scenarios.” It may sound like the death knell for those who love to 1v3 or, even better, rat in a corner during Solos to kill unsuspecting players, but the WSTR should still be a useful option. Just not the only one.

Of course, this is far from the end of balancing as the team is keeping track of a “variety” of issues, so even more changes could come down the pipe. In the meantime, maybe you should enjoy the current WSTR in all its pre-nerfed glory.

One of the more notable new additions is the Mercy Kit, which Rooks spawn in with. If you’ve ever inadvertently killed an opposing player without meaning to, you can use this to revive them. Whether they give you a receipt or not, well, that’s just a risk you’ll have to take. Solo players can also now discover Depleted Self-Revive kits, which provide avenues for revival if knocked down.

If you found the Rewards Pass underwhelming, especially on the Premium track, Bungie has added three new skins for the Thief, Assassin, and Destroyer. The Free track now contains a Recon skin, WSTR Shotgun skin, and profile emblem. As for C.A.R.R.I. or the CyberAcme Runner Reinforcement Initiative, it offers new Commendations that can be earned from completing contracts, extracting as Rook and more.

These can be exchanged for a “random stack of Salvage items or Reputation Packs that provide reputation for their associated faction.” If that wasn’t enough, solo players now earn increased XP and faction reputation, though the standard faction contracts grant more rep for all types of players.

Check out some of the patch notes below and full details here. You can also learn what’s next on the roadmap here.

Marathon Update 1.0.6

General

• ONI has launched the C.A.R.R.I. or CyberAcme Runner Reinforcement Initiative, a new protocol that rewards both solo Runners and coordinated Crews for completing contract objectives and exfiling together.
  – CyberAcme Commendations are a new material earned by helping crewmates complete contract objectives, completing contract objectives as a solo
• Runner, or successfully exfiling as a Rook. Extra commendations can be earned when you exfil with other players outside of your Crew. Play nice, now.
• Added Stay Together, a new end-of-run experimental feature that allows you to stay with the Runners you just successfully exfiled with by creating a new Crew with them. Who said you can’t make friends on Tau Ceti?
  – Only one crewmate needs to successfully exfil for Stay Together to be available – if you’re eliminated, stay connected!
• Added the capability to access the Rewards Pass from the top left display of SILK.
• We want to increase the value of the Rewards Pass, both the Free and Premium tracks. As a result, we are adding four new Runner Shell styles, a WSTR Shotgun style, and a profile emblem to the Season 1 Rewards Pass:
  – Premium Track: Thief, Assassin, Destroyer
  – Free Track: Recon, WSTR Shotgun, Profile Emblem
• Fixed an issue where the rank up rewards tutorial could be out of sequence.
• Disciples of Arachne earnable shell styles are now available in the Codex.
• Updated the Perimeter (Beginner) new player map to now be a solos-only map that remains available to players until Seasonal Level 12.
  – The Perimeter (Beginner) map presents a reduced risk of encountering other Runners.
• Added five new contracts for the Perimeter (Beginner) map.
  – New and existing players under Seasonal Level 12 will also have access to new optional CyberAcme contracts tailored for the beginner experience to help with their first steps in Marathon.
  – To help players understand the mechanics around the Perimeter Beginner contracts, these new contracts can only be progressed while in Perimeter Beginner or Perimeter Solo Runs.
  – These contracts are no longer accessible after reaching Seasonal Level 12 and will be removed even if decrypted or active.
• When the final exfil is active and there are less than 10 seconds remaining, the timer for other exfils will be reduced to match the remaining session timer. Tie goes to the Runner, after all.
  Developer Note: Previously, the 10-second countdown for non-final exfils was being overwritten by the final exfil timer. Because the difference was only a few seconds, players would see the exfil animation and believe they successfully exfiltrated only to discover they did not in the Run Report. We think this change will result in last-second exfils feeling more “fair”.

Progression

• Increased runner level and faction reputation earning for solo players.
• Increased standard contract faction reputation rewards for all players.

Armory

• The C.A.R.R.I. Armory allows you to spend CyberAcme Commendations for Salvage Crates that grant a random stack of Salvage items or Reputation Packs that provide reputation for their associated faction. Salvage Crate and Sponsored Kit stock refreshes daily while other C.A.R.R.I. offers do not refresh and can only be purchased once.

The Recon is a Shell for players who like to hunt down their opponents, unleashing pings to see them through walls, tracking their footprints, and even sending a drone to decimate all and sundry. It’s all quite cool until you consider that it could be used against you when you dive into Marathon for a run or two.

The Recon is one of those Shells you’d rather have on your team, and we’re particularly happy to use it as a part of a Duo. It does take a bit of skill to pull off, though. It’s almost as nasty as the Thief, and that’s saying a lot. It will be interesting to see how the new drone fares with all of the balancing tweaks that Bungie will implement in the coming days.

Marathon is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. It allegedly cost over $200 million, though it’s apparently closer to $250 million.

That said, it is a triple-A title and that reportedly extends to the budget. Forbes’ Paul Tassi claims that its budget is “over $200 million” and may even be closer to $250 million. The kicker is that it allegedly doesn’t include maintenance or new content. Are end-game activities like Ranked Mode and Cryo Archive, which launched several weeks after, included? We can’t really say.

However, it’s very likely that the mid-season balance patch and new Implants fall under new content, as will any new maps, Runners, weapons, cosmetics, and much more.

A lifetime peak concurrent player count of 88,337 on Steam and less than 30,000 in the past 24 hours would sound disastrous with that kind of budget. After all, Marathon costs $40, and if it reportedly sold 1.2 million, that’s nowhere close to breaking even. However, Sony could be playing the long game and relying more on recurring revenue from a dedicated hardcore player base.

We’ll find out in the coming months, so stay tuned. In the meantime, check out our review of Marathon here.

There are some promising updates about Duos making their way to the game as a part of Season 2, including a new experimental queue on April 15th, 10 AM PT. It’s otherwise been a busy week of balancing the game over at Bungie, with several nerfs of popular tactics hitting the game, the Biotoxic Disinjector being prominent among them.

It’s all part of an effort to make Marathon well-balanced, and to transform Tau Ceti IV into the destination of choice for those of you who can’t get enough of extraction shooters. In the meantime, those among you who’ve been having a blast playing as part of two-member extraction squads could dabble with bigger teams, or maybe take a breather if you’re so inclined.

Marathon is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. It’s due to receive even more content in Season 2, including a night version of Dire Marsh and a new Runner. Check out the roadmap here.