Sony Admits Destiny 2 Is Failing, Takes a €175.4M Hit
We've all felt it. The Destiny 2 player numbers have been cratering, hitting lows we haven't seen since the dark days of Curse of Osiris. The community sentiment has been in the gutter.
Now, we have official, corporate confirmation. Sony's accountants have noticed.
During Sony’s Q2 FY2025 earnings call, CFO Lin Tao put a brutally hard number on the bad vibes. Destiny 2's "sales and user engagement have not reached" the expectations Sony had when it bought Bungie.
They're "downwardly revised" their projections. That's the driest, most corporate way of saying, "We're bleeding."
The €175.4 Million Black Hole
This isn't just a "whoops, numbers are a bit low" situation.
Sony recorded a ¥31.5 billion impairment loss. At the current exchange rate, that's roughly €175.4 million. This write-down is tied directly to Bungie's assets, specifically Destiny 2.
This impairment, along with other "development cost corrections," is a primary reason PlayStation's gaming division saw its operating income drop, even though overall sales were up.
Was the €3.1 Billion Bet a Mistake?
This immediately makes you look at that massive €3.1 billion price tag Sony paid for Bungie back in 2022.
During the Q&A, Tao was asked if this was just the beginning of the write-downs. She clarified that the "goodwill" (the premium they paid) is safe for now, as it's tied to the whole PlayStation segment.
But—and this is a big "but"—she did admit that other Bungie assets, like the upcoming Marathon and Destiny 2 itself, still carry a "risk of impairment loss" if their performance doesn't pick up.
This puts an insane amount of pressure on Marathon and the new Star Wars–themed Destiny 2: Renegades expansion coming in December.
It also explains, in painful detail, why Sony recently said Bungie's famous "independence is getting lighter". When you cost your new parent company €175.4 million (out of the €1.03 billion set aside for retention, no less), the leash gets very, very short.
The 'New Player' Problem
Sony is blaming the "competitive environment", but this completely misses the massive, gaping wound that players have been pointing to for years: Destiny 2 is impossible for new players to get into.
This isn't a niche complaint; it's a foundational rot. The game has zero respect for new players.
With so much of the original launch content vaulted, there is no real indication of where to start, what to do, or why you are doing it.
It's an incredibly common experience for a group of friends to download the game, try it for a few hours, and bounce off hard. They just get lost in a sea of confusing systems, disconnected story threads, and an impenetrable wall of lore.
A live service game cannot survive without new players. You will never keep 100% of your veterans. Destiny 2 desperately needs new blood, but it offers them nothing but confusion.
Sony and Bungie can "continue to make improvements" all they want, but if they don't fix the front door, the house is always going to be empty. That Renegades expansion has a lot of weight on its shoulders.