Two things have since become clear Marathon launched at the beginning of March. The first is that it is a very cool game that is unlike anything else. The second is that most players are perfectly happy to have nothing to do with it. While Bungie’s extraction shooter attracts fanatical hyper-fans who take the time to tune in whenever possible, the overall sales numbers appear to be far below what Sony was hoping for and what the studio needed to avoid even more layoffs.
According to guesses from data company Alinea Analytics, at $40 Marathon has sold 1.2 million copies since its launch on console and PC, with around 70% of those copies sold on Steam, compared to 19% on PlayStation 5 and just 11% on Xbox Series X/S. This is fewer copies than the The souls of demons remake sold for $70the studio behind which Sony closed its doors last month. And a low PS5 attachment rate means only a fraction of total sales occur on a platform where Sony can collect the entire margin.
A more promising picture is painted by player statistics. Marathon’s player count is nowhere near that of rival extraction shooter Arc Raiders attracted by its explosive launch, but those who stick with the game become obsessed. “Despite a difficult start, the data suggests that those who survived MarathonNewcomers love life,” writing Rhys Elliot from Alinea.
Marathon has sold 1.2 million copies on Steam, PS5 and Xbox (@alineaanalytics estimates).
It didn’t exactly make the splash the way Sony and Bungie wanted it to, even though the game beneath the surface is a MASTERPIECE of design.
Looking at the breakdown between Steam, PS5 and Xbox, Steam is… pic.twitter.com/vl8ku1Y1Bn
– Rhys Elliott (@superhys) March 24, 2026
He continued: “We have been following cross-platform operations [daily active users]and even though there are expected leaks after launch, many players are sticking with it. After peaking at 478,000 total DAU on the first Saturday, Marathon has been settling in at a respectable pace, holding 345,000 DAU yesterday and averaging 380,000 DAU throughout the weekend.
This syncs up with a data point shared last week by Circana’s Mat Piscatella. “According to Circana’s Player Engagement Tracker, on Tuesday, the average Marathon The player played for just under four hours on PlayStation and Xbox, ranking among the top 10 games on both platforms,” he said. wrote.
Marathon is Sony’s largest live service test to date According to Elliot, the total playing time has also been impressive. PC gamers spent an average of 27.8 total hours playing Marathonfollowed by 16.5 hours for PS5 users and 17.3 hours for Xbox users. An estimated 22% of Steam players have played over 50 hours, while 7% have played over 100 hours. Marathon this is not a live service slope. While many have completely given up on its highly stylized art direction and brutal gameplay loop, the people who love it Really to like.
As Elliot points out, this leaves Sony with a tough choice to make: pull the plug or double down. We don’t know what Sony’s sales expectations were for the game or how much it cost, let alone the cost of continuing to operate at the scale Bungie is known for. What we do know is that the studio is located in one of the most expensive game development markets in the world. Microsoft has previously hesitated to acquire Bungie because of its “high combustion rate”, and Sony has been on a cost-cutting spree in recent years.
Bungie He paid $3.6 billion for the studio at the height of Destiny 2The popularity of and pandemic-fueled game acquisition frenzy. Two years later, executives called out the studio by name during earnings calls to hurt profitability. The studio did not “necessarily understand how their respective efforts related to overall growth, sustainable profit generation, and higher margins,” then-PlayStation president Hiroki Totoki said. said in 2024. A few months later, he laid off 220 employees, around a hundred heads having already been cut in October of the previous year.
Destiny 2meanwhile, is at its lowest concurrent player count ever on Steam. Once a cash cowthe game has seen its new expansion delayed and its future seems more uncertain than ever from a gameplay and content perspective. It is difficult to see how Marathonin its current state, fills that void, let alone moves the rest of Bungie forward as it incubates its next round of projects between managing existing live service production pipelines. This calculation is not activated Marathonon the side.
But the creativity, world-building, and gameplay are. There is no longer any doubt that Marathon it’s something specialeven if it’s not the financial juggernaut that Sony was betting on all those years ago. Marathon is a great game and a solid foundation for something bigger. Is this a live-action game that slowly continues to build a larger audience in the years to come, or a possible springboard for a single-player sequel that some traditional shooter fans have been clamoring for since the game was first revealed?
So far in the live services space, Sony has had some wild successes and some obvious disasters. Helldiverse 2 exceeded his wildest expectations and Concord collapsed so spectacularly that Sony erased the game from existence in just a few weeks. With Marathonthere is no easy decision to make. Sony needs to prove it’s willing to invest in something good, in the belief that it will pay off in the end, or risk losing its legs under an incredible game at a time when it’s harder than ever to get people to care about new franchises, let alone multiplayer.
Live service dreams have devoured the PS5 generation and Sony’s first-party machine doesn’t have much to show for it. At a time when gaming hardware is becoming more homogeneous and major publishers are turning to multiplatform, Sony is said to be fully committed to the PlayStation ecosystem. What’s the point of a console with exclusives if you’re not willing to put it on the line for a game that deserves it? And Marathon I really deserve it.
