Sony Interactive Entertainment president Hiroki Totoki might only be the temporary fill-in since Jim Ryan left, but he’s clearly doing what he can to make his mark.
That’s exemplified mainly through how frank he’s been about the business, and the changes he feels should be made for Sony to be making even more money in the games industry.
His latest statement takes Bungie to task, saying the Destiny 2 developer needs to own up and be better at “assuming accountability for development titles.”
During the company’s fiscal year 2023 third quarter reporting and the Q&A session with shareholders, Totoki was asked to provide an update on Bungie.
“I visited the Bungie studios and had meetings with management, and I saw that employees working at the studios were highly motivated, showing great creativity as well as an impressive knowledge of live services,” said Totoki.
“However, I also felt that there was room for improvement from a business perspective with regard to areas such as the use of business expenses and assuming accountability for development timelines. I hope to continue the dialogue and come up with some good solutions.”
When Bungie was first acquired by Sony, the PlayStation company was clear that Bungie would be able to act independently, it was one of the main messages around Destiny 2 continuing to be multiplatform.
But that didn’t reportedly stop Sony from adding a clause where if the studio failed to meet certain goals, it would lose that independence.
Now that things haven’t been looking great for Bungie and the health of Destiny 2, which hit a new all-time low in player count on Steam on this day, February 20, 2024 with only 22, 215 players online, this feels almost like Sony’s own ‘failsafe’ to try and salvage things by taking control itself, if it needed to.
It doesn’t seem like Bungie is a very happy place to be right now, filled with a lot of tension and pressure, with its community relations only making things worse.
Things have been tense between Bungie and its community for some time now, and the companies recent layoffs didn’t do anything to help the situation.
Bungie’s last big expansion was not the slam-dunk it would’ve liked it to be, and the studio’s less than advised monetization techniques with Destiny 2, it’s an understatement to say a lot is riding on The Final Shape.
Both financially and narratively within the world of Destiny, The Final Shape is arguably the most important expansion in the history of the franchise, at least for now.
It’s the hugely anticipated conclusion to the first era of Destiny, the one players fell in love with at the start. If it fails to deliver on a solid ending for players, it could be the thing that sends many of them logging off for the last time.
Bungie of course has other games in the works, and with the support of being under the PlayStation Studios umbrella, it’s likely not going anywhere.
Even still, The Final Shape could likely change the way people talk about Destiny – forever.