Sony has recorded a wince-inducing impairment loss of ¥120.1 billion ($766 million / £562 million) against Bungie for the financial year ending 2025 (that’s the financial year that ended March 31, 2026, for those of us who operate within the confines of mortal, non-business time).
In financial results released today, Sony announced that, following a ¥31.5 billion ($201 million / £148 million) impairment loss against Bungie recorded in the second quarter of FY2025, it had recorded an additional ¥88.6 billion ($566 million / £415 million) impairment loss in the final quarter of the 2025 financial year. That’s—hang on, let me check my maths—yep, a ¥120.1 billion loss overall.
If you had the good fortune not to study economics or business, an impairment loss is the term for an unexpected decrease in an asset’s value versus its ‘book’ value. That is to say, if I own a videogame studio and record its value at $50 million, but someone reveals the Videogame-Bot 5000, which can develop games in a quarter of the time, my studio would suffer an impairment loss—that change in the conditions of the market and production would mean my $50 million studio was now really only worth $12.5 million (or something). You wouldn’t record an impairment loss for an asset’s normal wear and tear; that’s just expected depreciation.
In Q2 of FY2025, Bungie’s ¥31.5 billion impairment was down to Destiny 2 underperforming. Quoth Sony’s moneymen at the time: “Regarding Destiny 2, partially due to the 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. 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.”
The Q4 loss isn’t (yet) attributed to any one thing in particular, but the timespan encompasses the release of Bungie’s extraction shooter Marathon. Despite some pretty strong initial sales, the game has not been the ginormo-hit Sony was hoping for. It’s likely Marathon’s relative underperformance is fuelling this latest loss, at least in part.
It’s certainly not good news for Bungie, particularly given Sony’s rather ruthless record of bringing the hammer down on its underperforming properties, but I’m not willing to prognosticate too hard. For what it’s worth, Sony says its overall sales for its games and network services in FY2025 were “essentially flat,” while its operating income was up 12%. Even with Bungie’s impairment loss acting as a lodestone, Sony’s hardly having to sell the family silverware just yet.
