The Spider-Man game, which has become one of the most important productions of the PlayStation brand, will almost be released exclusively for Xbox consoles.
As we mentioned in the Spider-Man review content we wrote earlier, this game series has now become one of the most important brands of PlayStation consoles. After the success of Marvel’s Spider-Man, we encountered the Miles Morales game and the sequel is on the way. If a new detail emerges Xbox Spider-Man It indicates that the relationship has turned from the pole.
Xbox throws Spider-Man games away
We have to admit that Sony has closed an important gap with Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine, which is also developed by Insomniac. The Spider-Man series, perhaps the fingers of a hand, is a successful movie, and it appeared as one of the comic book adaptations. The Spider-Man brand was almost going to join the Xbox, but the company backfired this great opportunity on the grounds that it did not comply with its strategy.
All these details are explained in the book The Ultimate History of Video Games and it is mentioned how Sony got the Spider-Man rights. As many of you will remember, Spider-Man rights were under the umbrella of Activision for 14 years. Although there were some productions that stood out in this process, we always encountered low-budget games.
Jay Ong, vice president of Marvel Games, thought that the publisher did not work enough on IP, and that The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which was released in 2014, received 40 points in Metacritic, which also disadvantaged the brand.
The game that changed everything: Arkham Asylum
In the book, Jay Ong states that “Superhero games were judged by a different standard, a lower standard because most superhero games and most licensed games were pretty poor.” The following information is included with the statement; As a result, publishers were giving studios very low budgets for superhero games. That standard changed when Arkham Asylum sold over 10 million copies. As a result, Ong decided it was time to leave Activision.
The Marvel executive started looking for a publisher that didn’t make “lousy licensed games” and could view the brand as a long-term investment. Nintendo is already out of the list from the first minute, mostly because it makes its own brands.
In the interviews with Xbox, it was stated that the company wanted to focus on their own brands and this purchase was not suitable for their strategy. In the negotiations with PlayStation, an offer was presented with the statements “It can be a game that can beat Arkham and ensure greater adoption of your platform” and Sony was asked to invest $ 100 million in a Marvel game brand.
After this agreement, as you know, the Spider-Man project was given to an independent studio called Insomniac Games, which we can consider to be experienced in open world games before.
Insomniac was already making very ambitious games technically and was also experienced in parkour dynamics. According to Ted Price, CEO of Insomniac, the studio was one of the companies most enthusiastic about Spider-Man. The dev team wanted to show how Peter Parker was just as ordinary as everyone else.
In short, we can say that behind the success of the latest Spider-Man games, there is actually Jay Ong, the vice president of Marvel Games, and the belief of PlayStation in the brand. On the other hand, the success of batman: Arkham Asylum was the most important factor in Ong’s idea.
On the other hand, we see that Xbox backfires a great opportunity in this process. As a matter of fact, with this success, Insomniac Games has now entered the Playstation studios. We can say that it is certain that games such as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine will open new doors.