Much of the success of PlayStation for the past decade it has been fueled by its exclusives such as The Last of Us, God of War and, perhaps in particular, Spider-Man. Insomniac’s PS4 exclusive arrived in 2018 and became a real hit, selling over 20 million copies. The story however could have been very different, since apparently Microsoft And Xbox were approached by Marvel Games at the same time as Sonywith the PlayStation rival rejecting the deal.
The indiscretion comes from the book The Ultimate History of Video Games Volume 2 then shared within ResetEra. When Jay Ong was hired to be Marvel’s Vice President of Games in 2014, his first challenge was to figure out why the box office weight of the MCU was not equal in the world of video games. While there were certainly beloved Marvel games that sold well, there was nothing that made huge numbers.
Ong gave up on approaching Nintendo as it focuses primarily on its own IPs, so he later got in touch with PlayStation and Xbox. Presenting a vision that included at least one Marvel game that could rival the quality and popularity of the Arkham series, Microsoft turned down the opportunity to have future Marvel games as Xbox exclusives, citing that it was focusing on its own IP at the time.
Sony accepted Marvel’s offer, entrusted the project to Insomniac, and work began on the first Spider-Man game. But first there was another hurdle that Marvel had to overcome before they could hire Sony and Insomniac to create a Spider-Man game, which was to keep the license away from Activision.
Activision wished Ong the best of luck when he told them why he wanted to end his business relationship with the company in order to find a better home for the iconic hero. Now, following the huge success of Marvel’s Spider-Man, Insomniac is working not only on a new chapter in the series, but also on a game about Wolverine.
Source: ResetEra
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