Sony SFO Lin Tao told investors that Bungie’s independence is “getting lighter,” with the studio shifting to become “more part of PlayStation Studios.”
Spotted by VGC, Tao spoke about the governance of Bungie during a Q&A session following the latest fiscal report for the quarter ended June 30, 2025. The CFO told investors that, at the time of the studio acquisition in 2022, Sony was offering “a very independent environment” for Bungie, which was “one way of thinking.”
Then, referencing last year’s “structural reform,” Tao noted independence is getting lighter, and the integration with PlayStation Studios is “proceeding” at the moment. “So in the long term, if you can see this as an ongoing process, the direction [for Bungie] is to become part of PlayStation Studios,” Tao said via an interpreter. For context, the structural reform could be related to Bungie’s Creative Studios becoming fully integrated with PlayStation Studios in October of last year, although Sony Interactive Entertainment also had a substantial leadership shake-up.
The conversation started after an investor asked Sony to provide an update on Marathon, after Bungie delayed it in June of this year following a tumultuous early reception, both internally and externally. Tao responded that Sony expects the launch to happen “within the fiscal year,” which ends on March 31, 2026. Yet, the CFO emphasized the timeframe isn’t a commitment.
“No official announcement has been given yet,” Tao said. “We are now doing modifications in development and, based on the progress, in the autumn time frame we believe we can communicate when we can launch [Marathon], either from Bungie or PlayStation.”
When asked whether Marathon would be canceled, the CFO said that Sony believes “this launch will happen,” with the team currently busy “fixing the problems.” Tao added that “if this launch is canceled, we’d need to do the revision of the valuation, however as of now this is not expected.”
The live service shift is ‘not entirely going smoothly’ for Sony
During the same Q&A session, the CFO also provided an update on PlayStation’s current live service plan (thanks again, VGC). When asked about the status as well as whether the company sees issues when it comes to improving its live service games, Tao said that games like Helldivers 2, MLB The Show, Gran Turismo 7, and Bungie’s own Destiny 2 are contributing to sales and profits in a stable manner.
“Last year Concord [shut down], and this year Marathon was postponed, so somewhat negative news has been coming out,” Tao said, referencing the case of Concord ‘s shutdown last year, a mere two weeks after release. “But if we look at the past five years, five years ago live service games were almost non-existent for PlayStation Studios.”
Tao added that the live service ratio for Q1 was about 40 percent, while the full year is ranging probably between 20 to 30 percent. In terms of transformation, she said “it’s not entirely going smoothly,” but that there’s been a change in the long-term perspective over the past five years.
“Of course, we recognize that there are still many issues, so we should learn the lessons from mistakes and make sure that we introduce live service content where there’s less waste and it’s more smooth,” Tao said.
Back in June, PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst insisted that Marathon won’t make the same mistakes as Concord, and that the live service market remains a “great opportunity” for the company. This came months after Sony scrapped two more live service titles in development at internal studios Bluepoint Games and Bend Studios, the latter seeing an undisclosed number of workers laid off as well.
“I think that some really good work went into that title,” Hulst said at the time. “Some really big efforts. But ultimately that title entered into a hyper-competitive segment of the market. I think it was insufficiently differentiated to be able to resonate with players. So we have reviewed our processes in light of this to deeply understand how and why that title failed to meet expectations—and to ensure that we are not going to make the same mistakes again.”
