While Sony has reported quite a bit of revenue loss attributed to its acquisition of Bungie, during the Q&A session of its earnings report, CFO and corporate executive officer Lin Tao said that the company still plans to continue supporting Marathon thanks to its strong critical reception. As caught by Yahoo! Finance, Tao has noted that the extraction shooter has gotten a Metacritic score of 82 and 90 percent positive player ratings through Steam.
“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.
