Rhys Elliott@superhys
Marathon has sold 1.2M copies across Steam, PS5, and Xbox (@alineaanalytics estimates).
It hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and Bungie wanted, even if the game underneath the surface is a MASTERWORK of design.
Looking at the split between Steam, PS5, and Xbox, Steam is clearly the main platform for Marathon, accounting for a little under 70% of the audience (800K copies sold). Meanwhile, PS5 takes about 19% (217K) and Xbox (including console, PC, and cloud) accounts for a bit over 11% or 133K.
Marathon is technically a first-party Sony title, so seeing the home console struggle to break 20% of the volume is a notable data point for the ongoing platform-agnostic debate. PlayStation Studios online games will almost certainly continue being multiplatform (despite Sony reportedly pulling back on PC releases).
One topic that came up in a lot of conversations at GDC this year was why Marathon hasn’t hit the same stratosphere as Arc Raiders. On paper, they’re both extraction shooters, and Marathon has the Bungie pedigree – the house that built the gold standard for gunplay in Halo and Destiny.
My answer: Players understand the Arc Raiders loop within 30 minutes, while Marathon's UI acts as a massive filter, chewing up newcomers and spitting them out before they can experience the depth of Bungie’s signature gunplay and Marathon's awesome gameplay loop.
The Steam copies sold during each game's respective Server Slam paint a picture there. Arc Raiders saw a massive 80% jump in copies sold during its three-day Server Slam. Marathon, meanwhile, saw a 49% increase in the four days following its Slam (Day -7 to -3).
Despite the friction-heavy start, the data suggests that those who survived Marathon’s onboarding are loving life. We’ve been tracking cross-platform DAUs, and while there’s the expected post-launch leakage, many players are sticking with it. After peaking at 478K total DAUs on its first Saturday, Marathon has settled into a respectable rhythm, holding 345K DAUs as of yesterday and averaging 380K DAUs across the weekend.
On Steam, Marathon’s average playtime has climbed to 27.8 hours, significantly outpacing the console averages on PS5 (16.5h) and Xbox (17.3h). Even more telling than the averages: 22% of the Steam audience has surged past the 50-hour mark, and nearly 7% have already logged over 100 hours.
PlayStation and Bungie are at a crossroads here. They can:
1. Double down on Marathon with a long-term Rainbow Six Siege- or No Man’s Sky-style recovery plan, which is something I heard @ChrisRGun smartly mention last week on Sacred Symbols. While this could be a sunk-cost fallacy in action, it could eventually yield the audience the game’s mechanical depth deserves.
2. Shift focus toward the inevitable Destiny 3 or another project, mitigating the escalating opportunity cost and cutting their losses, so to speak.
Doing both is an expensive proposition, given the high overhead and burn rate of operating out of Bellevue, Washington. With Sony recently demonstrating a lower threshold for underperforming studios and projects, the margin for error has vanished. Whatever happens, the next six months will determine whether Marathon becomes a cornerstone of Sony’s live-service portfolio or a cautionary tale of vision exceeding accessibility.
I’m hoping it’s the former, because Marathon fucking rocks. Big analysis on the free Substack, with lots more data and thoughts (link in bio)
