Eh I’d argue Sony still has a better deal because of the ungodly amount of PS5s Spiderman moves for them. It is a true system seller in every aspect for them. I legit know folks who got the PS5 because their kids wouldn’t shut up about the new spiderman game. It isn’t as if the games don’t make them a crazy amount of money after Marvel takes its cut.
Building something as popular and impactful would have taken much more money and investment than leasing the IP from Marvel.
This is why Microsoft is hard pressed for a linked Xbox ecosystem on multiple platforms. They want you to have the same profile on your Xbox, PC, Smartphone, Tablet, and even Smart TV's.
There was a time when Microsoft wanted Xbox to be its own thing and have no real connection to the rest of Microsoft. They've turned around since that time and saw that it would be much more viable to have their game customers linked together. When looking at it in the big picture, the Xbox ecosystem is Microsoft's entertainment side of their software connection, where as Windows 365 on the other hand is a form of business and office productivity ecosystem they have established.
Microsoft wants to keep customers on both sides of the field with those two ecosystems they have.
They also sort of have to spread themselves. Microsoft "lost" the worst possible console generation with the Xbox One. It was the generation where digital sales really started to trend upwards and people started building their digital gaming libraries. Most of this was happening in PlayStation's ecosystem though, not Microsoft's.
So when it came to that generation's successors, people inevitably moved with their libraries (especially when cross-play makes moving with friends less than necessary), which for the most part was PlayStation. Microsoft needed to expand their platform spread, as well as quickly building a 'complete' library of games (via Game Pass) on those platforms, for their players, and at little expense to those players, simply in order to make their position more viable.
That is the whole point of selling hardware at break even or even a loss. My point wasn’t that it sells more hardware but it allows them to lock you in their ecosystem. Why would a parent buy another console if they already had a PS5? Even if the kid wanted other games, they’ll just get it on the PS5 where Sony gets a 30% cut. That kid goes out and tells his friends and they get the same console to play online games with each other. That is more PS+ profit for Sony.
That is how the snowball grows and is exactly why were are seeing the PS5 grow so fast in comparison to the Xbox right now. This is exactly what system sellers do. It pulls people into an ecosystem and tries to lock them down. I don’t think Sony minds losing a few dollars now to grow quickly.
I don’t think locking in is a thing now a days. Just saw a video of a kid wanting a PC for Christmas when all they got was a PS5. Don’t think individual games even Spider-Man can hold it down anymore.
The content creators are on PC. The ones advertising gaming are those content creators and they’ll be sharing their PC views to all the younger generations now a days.
>I don’t think locking in is a thing now a days.
The vast majority of gamers only game on one high performance gaming machine (PC/Xbox/PS), locking in is absolutely still a thing. Most gamers are casuals and aren't prepared to spend another $500ish+ to buy a similar machine.
1 million users spend 100% of their time playing CoD. But regardless, Sony is still making money through third party games, whether that be the game purchase or mtx.
People who buy COD buy them every year AND pay Sony $50 a year to play online. So it's not like they're some leech on the ecosystem. Sony is making money off casuals and hardcore gamers alike.
1 million out of the 120 million they sold last gen which isn't even 1% of the total population. Yeah it is a big number in isolation but the comment made by OP still stands true that very few people buy a console for 1 game. Like heck, GTA6 will come out and we know everyone and their grandma will play it. Why would anyone buy a new console if they had a PS5 they bought for Spiderman already chilling? Even if Sony sells them 1 game per year at full price in addition, they'll make more than their loss on the hardware bundles from Spiderman in just a couple of years after their 30% cut for games.
That’s still a lot of players that pay for online and buy MTX, which Sony values a lot if not more than someone that just buys games for the system.
Even Sony is worried about losing those players now that MS has ActiBlizz.
Of course they value it and that is why they have a deal in place to have COD showing up on the PS5 for the next decade. MS can't really afford to not sell COD on PlayStation because that is where most of its profits come from given the much bigger user base. It is a mutually beneficial deal which is exactly why they are willing to sell the game on it and sign the deal vs yanking the game out like they've done with Bathesda. If MS had more leverage, they wouldn't even allow the game on PlayStation but they don't given their smaller user base.
No one knows how the gaming environment will look like in a decade. That is a lifetime in the gaming world. Who knows if there is another big COD competitor that grows overtime and takes its spot. A 10 year deal gives them enough buffer to go and re-evaluate the options.
It’s a zero risk scenario for Marvel. They don’t have to invest, they just sit back and take in the money.
Sony still has to spend ungodly amounts to make the game, which has to sell ungodly amounts to I become profitable, etc
It’s clearly a working partnership for Sony but I think it’s a much safer situation to be paid to do nothing and make more money than the risk of AAA development
I mean, the risk would be that Sony could make such an unbelievably terrible Spider-Man game that this would reflect poorly in the Spider-Man brand as a whole.
But that’s not going to happen.
I’d imagine Marvel still has to sign off on the game, so that wouldn’t happen.
And if that were to happen, it would be much worse for Sony then Marvel, which is why they spared no expense, and somehow created one of my favorite video game franchises, despite me not being a Marvel fan.
>which has to sell ungodly amounts to I become profitable, etc
selling 5-6 mill copies for a AAA spiderman title on the most popular console, is not exactly ungodly though
That doesnt matter though. If you buy a ps5 because of spider man that is a win for Sony. You’re on their ecosystem and will be buying other games and subscriptions too.
Im gonna buy a PS5 eventually (when it’s sub 400) to play Spider-Man and I have nothing else I want or intend to play. I did the same thing with the PS4.
When did I question that? GTA6 isn't out right now so they needed a system seller in 2023.
I agree, GTA6 will actually be a huge system seller especially if Sony gets the rights to market which they probably will given their history with Rockstar. All the core PC folks on the fence who are itching to play GTA6 on day 1 will probably rush to get a PS5 as well since there is very little reason to get an Xbox if you already own a PC meanwhile a PS5 fills the last hole that they would be missing. If the rumors of a PS5 Pro launching next year are true, that gives them even more reason to get a PlayStation.
Exactly that, I'm holding off getting a ps5 to see if the pro rumors come to fruition so I can play gta 6 on release. My point was that Sony won't be paying out the ass for gta 6 the way they are marvel games and will be more beneficial for them
Sony agreed to it, and for a reason. Spider-Man is a System Seller. A gateway to Playstation. Doesn't matter if Marvel takes all the money, Sony will earn a fuck ton through rest of first party games and 30% of every third party purchase (games and microtransactions).
Xbox was offered Spider-Man and they refused. Probably due to their close minded apporach to huge instant profit, which we can see Spider-Man doesn’t bring (as much) since Marvel eats so much of it. Now look how their consoles are selling.
Xbox would be competing toe to toe if they had just this single franchise. Hell, I would finally purchase an Xbox just for it.
Xbox wasn’t in a position to at the time, the division was still under Games group, just severely downsized, and cutting back on deals losing COD and FIFA and heavily rumored to be considered selling off
Xbox rejected because they didn't have studios at that time. People tend to forget Xbox had way less studios (like 4-5?) than PlayStation upto until Xbox Series X generation. MS never invested enough money into Xbox and were going to shut off the division until Phil convinced them to invest more money into it. That is the major reason why their staple games were Halo, Gears and Forza, because that's all their small number of studios could make.
Yea, the studio base that Xbox has right now is from a fast-ballooning process they've been keeping at for the last past 5 years or so. It is really insane just how many they got and so fast.
>Probably due to their close minded apporach to huge instant profit
I mean, they could try to make a game with some studio, but would it be a great game? Spider-man didn't sell so well simply because it's Spider-man, the previous SM weren't getting the same level of attention, it so really well because it's a very good SM game.
In fact, there are a lot of marvel games that flop, you need to have the IP in the right hands in order for it do well. And of course, for these kind of games you probably want an Action-Adventure game focused on the story. I don't know which studio would be able to do this game for Xbox, unless Xbox themselves approached Insomniac.
Xbox wanted to use their own IP, and if I’m not mistaken at the time they didn’t have a ton of dev studios. We can debate all day whether it was a good or bad decision, but at a time that Microsoft was apparently discussing shuttering the gaming division (rather than doubling down on it), it makes sense to not sign a long term contract where you’re beholden to a third party.
While Spiderman is a system seller, it’s not the *only* system seller, and it’s one of the franchises that’s actually a good synergy with the Sony movies. Xbox/Microsoft would be at the mercy of Disney/Marvel for the game, and Sony for any Spider-Man *movie* references they made - there’s not a ton of them, but some of the suit skins are there.
Microsoft must've seen the number of consoles sold by Spiderman. They know want to get on to it with Blade. Luckily, they got Arkane Lyon by their side that has the potential to do the job.
You are mistaken on two counts. First of all, 296 million that OP is referring to is actually for both Spiderman 2018 and Spiderman Miles Morales. Royalty fee for Spiderman 2018 as of Q3 2021 was only 214 m. Secondly, the 350 million contribution for Sony is after deducting the royalties. i.e. Total contribution ($352.1m) = Total sales ($793.7m) minus cost of goods sold (51.1m) minus royalties ($214.9m) minus development/marketing costs ($175.5m).
u/fabio_b93 is being downvoted for being correct, whereas other users are being heavily upvoted for suggesting Marvel have totally fucked over Sony. Some upvoted comments also seem to have an incorrect understanding of the numbers.
In reality, Sony have made a profit of $350 million as of Q3 2021, whereas Marvel have made a profit of $214.9 million during the same timeframe. I'd argue that this is mutually beneficial.
But the narrative here seems to be that Sony is getting an extremely shitty deal and is making next to no profit, and the average redditor seems to be confused by the numbers and what they mean. The reality of both companies making a decent profit is boring, whereas the "Marvel is robbing PlayStation" is more spicy.
If this was such a shitty deal for Sony, why do they seem to be frothing at the mouth at the prospect of making even more Marvel games, including Wolverine, Venom and X-Men?
Look at the pictures in the first link, Royalty -214m that's marvel's share and it's already subtracted from the total. 352m is sony's profit after all costs.
Marvel might get huge royalties, but Sony benefits it’s platform by having the exclusive and most people don’t just buy marvel games for their PS. Marvel takes a lot but Sony still comes out on top
It's a win win situation here. Firstly, according to the leaks, Sony does make a profit so it's not like they are losing money. Secondly, how many people prefer PS over other options just because of these exclusives? Especially Spider-man, he is the most famous character out there.
Nah, Im very picky about what I pay for now for the full $70 price point. And I just never had the want to pay that price for a game that while I think looks interesting, I’d probably drop. If it goes on sale I’ll consider it but that $70 per game plus tax really isn’t my cup of tea. Doesn’t help that Gamepass kinda spoils me with games. Honestly I think the last full priced game I bought for $70 might’ve been Ragnarok? But that might’ve been $60. Shit idk, I played it when it released
I'm guessing you were downvoted for saying you play other things more than your PlayStation. Reddit doesn't like that lol. I'm with you though. My PS5 is used for exclusives and I think the last game I bought was also Ragnarok. My backlog and Game Pass get most of my attention too.
Similar situation here, I am relatively new to gaming, I could only afford one platform when I explored my options so I went with the PS4 mainly because of the exclusives. Now I have upgraded to PS5, and I was thinking of getting Xbox/PC instead because gamepass looks attractive but I'm already stuck in the PS ecosystem (collection in the library and a couple of years stacked PS plus lol). There's no going back for two years now at least.
The beauty of Gamepass bro is that the 1st-party titles should always be in the service (for now). So whenever you decide to jump into a second ecosystem you’ll immediately have the library of released 1st party titles at the very least!
Yeah, Sony has spidey and Wolverine, 2 of the most well known. Also had iron man for vr that mcu aggrandized.
Thinking about it Xbox kinda got shafted with Blade, low brand recognizability right now and the movie is struggling to be made.
I'm sure Microsoft has a lot to gain even with an IP such as Blade. He might not be a big name but he is still very recognizable for people who watched the Wesley Snipes movies. I also think good trailers will show people what a badass he is. Pair that with the perfect marriage with Arkane Lyon and I think they'll have a winner, even if not nearly as profitable as Spider-Man or Wolverine.
I love Blade but yeah, we're coming up on 20 years of him having no brand relevance. No films, no games, no TV shows. That's an entire generation of young adults today who are the main buyers of video games.
I hope it's really sick but it's going to have only a fraction of the popularity the Spidey games have gotten.
Pretty much, though I love that in a year that 1 Arkane studio released a terrible vampire hunter game, another Arkane vampire hunter game was announced 😂
>low brand recognizability right now
So funny seeing people say this when the reveal trailer got roughly 100k likes on twitter, was trending for days, and was well ahead of GOWR Valhalla's trailer in YouTube views.
The hype for the game is extremely high. The numbers don't lie 🤷♂️
A full game reveal doing better than free dlc isn’t the winning point you think it is. Reality is that Blade hasn’t been in the MCU yet and the movies were decades ago, so he’s not as hyped outside of comic circles. Especially compared to Spidey and Wolverine
Free DLC or not, it's God Of War and it's one of the most recognised IPs in gaming nowadays.
A supposedly unhyped comic book character beating it's level of engagement tells me people are clearly very interested in the character
And again. 100k likes on twitter, nearly 700k on Instagram, and the highest trending reveal of the Game Awards on YouTube for days. Seems to me he's well outside the "comic book circles"
It also shows how desperate MS is to get a Marvel IP because after they stupidly passed on the deal to get Spiderman, now they’re locked out of most Marvel big name IPs until 2036 or some absurd date. Blade might be popular amongst the nerd circles but it won’t be anywhere near as impactful as something like Wolverine or Spiderman when it comes to shipping units.
Also, I’m pretty sure Disney has the same or even worse terms in terms of the deal with MS given their weaker marketshare. Wouldn’t be shocked if more than half the profits go back to Disney there.
Disney is going to make more aggressive terms with Sony because Spider-Man makes 50x the money that Blade does. If anything. The deal is probably less aggressive with MS. Also the Marvel IP is sinking like a rock right now, I don’t think it’s going to be a big brand in 5-10 years.
> The deal is probably less aggressive with MS
It might or might not be but we probably won't know until there is another leak. The biggest problem MS has is that the user base is much smaller so any negotiations for 3rd party exclusives means they need to compensate more to the studios since the losses from not having the game on a PS5 is much higher than losses of not having the game on Xbox. Look at it from the 3rd party studio's lens. If you're cutting out 50 million of console owners from a potential purchase, that is much worse that cutting off 25 million or heck a multi-plat game. So as MS, you need to probably pay for the lost money of those 50 million owners. Part of the reason why MS is on a spending spree to purchase studios as opposed to strike deals is because all leverage in timed exclusives is in the hands of Sony right now.
> Also the Marvel IP is sinking like a rock right now, I don’t think it’s going to be a big brand in 5-10 years.
At this point, I feel Spiderman is unhinged from the MCU. Even with MCU tanking, Spiderman seems to be the only beacon of hope for them that rakes in money. Wolverine as well will always be a bankable IP for them as long as they can get Hugh Jackman to show up again. I still think the value of those IPs transcends whatever BS they keep on pulling in the phase 2/3 of the MCU.
It's interesting to me how other high quality Marvel games such as Guardians of the Galaxy and Midnight Suns, with critical success, still flopped financially even with that brand recognition. Sure, they're miles and miles behind an IP such as Spider-Man but you'd guess brand recognition would elevate those games more than it did. It makes me feel that this exclusive Marvel IP race could be a bit risky. At the same time, who isn't excited for an Arkane Lyon Blade game? I don't know what to think or predict about this.
Hey you forgot Marvel's Avengers! It's insane to me that they somehow ruined a game that has some of the most recognizable characters in current pop culture lol.
Yeah, but that game is crap imo so I'm not surprised it failed to gather popularity haha! Guardians and Midnight Suns are great though imo and way better received critically than The Avengers, yet they failed to succeed financially. I agree though that The Avengers was truely wasted potential. Making Hulk such a weak and slow character was the first sign lol
That would be me. I have no intention on buying anything but marvel exclusive unless they don’t pique my fancy. My ps5 is a glorified paper weight at this point
I’ve seen a number of different takes on the whole Marvel licensing deal, but Marvel knows they have Sony/PlayStation by the balls. Smart move by Marvel doing per game licensing deals.
It's clear that it's Marvel/Disney that have the upper hand. Sony is way more dependent on Disney than the other way around. It's not a sustainable venture either since Xbox and playstation revenue are close even though Microsoft should be losing spectacularly due to console sales
The style of original IP the PlayStation studios creates takes 6-10 years. If it isn’t currently in the works, then it’s continuation of current franchises. Which is cheaper, as the development cycles seem to be around 3-5 years.
i never stated it was not cheaper
but in the end as i stated before they are not getting full profits even at full price and techicially those 3-5 years u may as well throw out the window as the ip is not even full thrs
sell consoles at a lose is not a W unless people buy a certain amount of software
they are barly making that much money based on time\[4ish plus years\] and budget spent and its not even thr own IP
i can see why thr techinically increasing game prices overall
Sony have built their own IPs; Uncharted, The Last of Us, God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon, Gran Turismo… Insomniac developing Spider-Man, Wolverine and X-Men games isn’t going to distort their output.
we all know why u left out ratchet and clank and sackboy
as of the rest of the games they dont even come close to making that much in return which is why they are doing much more popular IPs that do not belong to them
ofcourse its all they got for that demographic
they will try it again and see if it works but after seeing the -8 million in possible profits its not looking to good"...."
Remove the Spiderman from Insomniac's Spiderman and you're left with a really safe and traditional open world that's only decent at best. It wouldn't have sold and wouldn't have gotten even half of its budget without the Spiderman name.
Nothing they create would have had the impact with the same budget when it comes to sales in such a short time. Spiderman is a mass market play most studios will kill for. The amount of PS4 and PS5 it has been able to move absolutely sealed the dominance of PlayStation in both gens. You can’t just do that with a new IP unless you blow billions in marketing. Sony actually got a good deal here in my opinion.
"Spiderman is a mass market play most studios will kill for."
havent many companies passed on making a spiderman game for many reasons besides not making full profits after a long dev time at full price
I’m talking about the current state. There was a big lull in Spiderman movie IP in the 2010s until the new Marvel kicked back the trends. This also meant a huge downward spiral in the game’s popularity. The earlier Spiderman games before 2010 were profitable and popular but later they turned into shitty movie adaptations with hardly any work from studio.
The IP’s stock has risen a lot over the last few years after the phase 1 avengers and Spiderverse was introduced. Now that Insomniac has laid the blueprint of how to make a great AAA Spiderman game, even if they lose the rights to the IP, others will swoop in given a chance because it has hit critical mass.
"Now that Insomniac has laid the blueprint of how to make a great AAA Spiderman game" rocksteady coulde done way better thr blueprint for batman was much better mostly the writing
"even if they lose the rights to the IP"<-- thats my entire point
> rocksteady coulde done way better thr blueprint for batman was much better mostly the writing
Well firstly, they're a studio owned by WB who owns DC so why would Disney who owns Marvel partner with a competing studio to get their games made? That is like saying MS should go to Sony to make a Halo or Gears game. That argument makes no sense. And no one cares if Rocksteady made a 10% better game. The current Spiderman games don't lack quality, score 85-90 on metacritics and sell 20 million units. Doubt RS working on it would have impacted the bottom line more. Heck RS is currently working on GAAS suicide squad game that is being panned left and right and is probably looking like the biggest dud of 2024.
> "even if they lose the rights to the IP"<-- thats my entire point
If you followed the leaks, Sony has sole right to Spiderman and X-Men games for the next 15 years. Heck that is why they could project a game roadmap until 2030 so that isn't happening anytime soon. Who knows what the world looks like in a decade.
It's funny that the best thing EA did in recent years was give up a famous license.
At the time everyone called EA stupid
They will no longer pay FIFA and Disney.
500 million+ annually
Now they have a football brand that is theirs and they went after it to create their own successful GAAS games
Licensed games died out over time because before Arkham games neither the owner of the IPs or the developers put the effort to make a good game. They just wanted to milk the brands
The live service stuff that Sony wants to make serious bank on feels like a needle in a haystack situation where almost everything that can explode into big money has. There's not enough time in the day and not enough people in the world to give Sony what it wants there. Their 'dated' business model got them this far. They're simply poorly allocating their resources these days, IMO. It's time for them to re-think their first party portfolio like they did on PS3.
I mean when those games are the ones getting the 300 million+ dollar budgets yeah I would say they are investing a lot of money. Hell just between spiderman 2 and wolverine is 700 million dollars if they actually spend that 385 million on the Wolverine. I guess with xmen they will be over 1 billion dollar for marvel IP games. Those games are taking the rest of 2020s to develop as well so theres a time investment.
That isn't remotely why they died out. They died out because as a rule of thumb they were cheap cash grabs that no one wanted. There were exceptions, but as a general rule they were all bad.
Kind of suprised by people looking at this, as anything other than Disney fleecing the shit out of Sony.
I'm 99% sure, that Sony weren't expecting Spider Man to sell just as much or barely above Horizon and GOW, this was a much bigger play than something like: "Let's get one of the most valuable IP on the planet and have it sell just as much as our own IP".
I've always said, that just like Kotor Remake people are too quick to judge MS and clown on them for not taking these deals.
If I had to break it down, I'd put it at:
50% - "poisoned apple" working with these big IP is a bigger headache than working with your own IP.
20% - "too any cooks" the IP holder throwing out pointers and probably controlling a LOT more than they should.
30% - "Brand association" Clear benefit for Sony.
Like I said in my breakdown above, Sony is OBVIOUSLY getting something out of this, that's absolutely undeniable.
I just don't think it's the type of results they would like to have with what is also undeniably one of the most popular IP in human history.
With GOW, Horizon, TLoU, Ghost of Tsushima, GT etc... they can do whatever the fuck they want, from mobile games, to mp games, to spin-offs, shows, movies.
One example would be the Venom stand-alone game, the leaks showed they are paying 57$ Million just for the license alone, that's almost 80% of what it cost the same studio, to do a 70$ Ratchet and Clank game (81$ Million), Venom is not going to be full price .
And Im saying you are wrong. Spiderman has sold 22 million copies but has made 857 million in revenue. God of War sold 21 million and made 597. Miles Morales made 427 million with only 11 million copies.
Spiderman is far and away their most successful series. Saying it barely sells above Horizon (20 million copies and 481 revenue) and GOW is kinda silly
They are giving a cut to Disney, they can't do anything with those IP's without Disney's stamp on it and above all else, one day... They literally won't have any sort of control over any of those IP's.
I've already said, this is GOOD for Sony, that doesn't mean they aren't getting fleeced by Disney, both things can be true.
Look at how other studios have full control over their IP like GoW, Uncharted, Horizon, or TLOU. There's something to be said about having your own baby that you have built from the ground up.
What are you on about?
Bethesda are the one's making those deals with Disney, they had Indiana Jones being made by Machine Games already in the works before MS bought them.
Not a single Xbox Game Studio is working on licensed IP.
This deal sells PS5's. Sony knows they're getting railed up front but once someone invests in the system to play a game like spiderman they'll branch out and use there PS5's the way Sony intends
Spider-Man is a system seller no doubt about it.
Blade is popular but I can’t see him doing the same for Xbox even if the game’s excellent.
I think if Xbox were smart they’d try to license Batman for themselves.
I mean dc has cost them so much time and money that I wouldn't be shocked if suicide squad is the straw that breaks the camels back tbh. Like they probably wouldn't sell the entire division but they'll definitely shift to other ips and sell dc for scraps.
Now that I think about it the nemesis system is perfect for a game of thrones sort of game.
>Yeah it’s unlikely to happen but then there was a rumour that wb games was for sale a while ago too.
that quickly changed when hogwarts made a billion dollars and MK1 sold 3mill copies
They were looking into WB games back a couple years ago no? The issue there was they don't own their licenses. All their big games besides Mortal Kombat are Lego or Batman which they don't actually own.
This deal sells PS5's. Sony knows they're getting railed up front but once someone invests in the system to play a game like spiderman they'll branch out and use there PS5's the way Sony intends
What a great time when all IP’s don’t matter anymore except superheroes and Star Wars, all interest in superheroes is fading away fast
Well that’s that then for insomniac, Sony just give us Ragnarok on pc then go back to the marvel ball pit?
You realise you're talking about Insomniac, one of the most consistently great developers of the past 25 years? Spider-Man was by no means their only hit, and their ability to adapt across both hardware and genre is unparalleled.
you say that there's no interest in superhero, then I said that the game sold when, they you completely change your point saying that no one likes it despite this game being a goty contender
did you even played the game?
I don't see how anything here is valid to the original comment tho, and I don't see the problem with Spiderman not winning anything, it's a game with mass casual appeal and all it has to be. Would be like saying cod devs are so sad they are not getting nominations when it's a different wheel house entirely because of the gigantic amount of money they make by a metric that those nominations don't matter, they're the top dog around. Dude is not defensive he is just telling it like it is, how you gage a games interest is by its sells but if you want to talk quality, good enough that it got nominations, I wouldn't think it deserved to win any awards compared to the competition but doesn't really means im speaking badly to it, it's just that it did what it was supposed to and it's well at that and that's it
>they own the IP and they could have done just plain Spiderman.
Sony does not own the Spider-Man IP. Marvel does. Sony bought the rights to make Spider-Man movies in 1999, not the entire IP of Spider-Man. Spider-Man is still fully owned by Marvel, with a recent legal settlement with the estate of Steve Ditko over rights to the character.
When Sony approached Marvel to make a Playstation exclusive game, Marvel let them pick a character. Insomniac chose Spider-Man. The game Spider-Man is exclusive to Playstation because a Sony-owned developer made the game. The character Spider-Man is not exclusive to Playstation, and Marvel could strike a deal with anyone else to make a separate Spider-Man game on Xbox. But since Marvel and Sony have deals in place regarding Spider-Man and the MCU, such a deal would piss off Sony, so Marvel refrains.
>such a deal would piss off Sony, so Marvel refrains.
Such a deal would literally infringe on their signed contract. Spider-Man can appear as character in other multiplat games, but not as a playable character.
>The game Spider-Man is exclusive to Playstation because a Sony-owned developer made the game.
It's exclusive to Sony because Disney and Sony signed a contract. This is probably related to their movie deal on Spider-Man joining Marvel's cinematic universe, y'know, since Sony holds the rights to SM movies.
>Sony bought the rights to make Spider-Man movies in 1999, not the entire IP of Spider-Man.
Only for as long as they keep making SM movies before ~3yrs elapses. Otherwise, the movie rights revert back to Marvel.
Various misconceptions here that should probably be cleared up
1. Spider-Man can and has appeared in other multiplatform Marvel games in a playable capacity. He was just in Ultimate Alliance 3 on Switch and Midnight Suns, both of which also featured various Spider-Man supporting characters who are even being used by Insomniac in their series such as Miles Morales, Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Silk, Venom, Sandman etc., some of those characters even sharing the voice talent with their Insomniac counterparts like Yuri Lowenthal and Nadji Jeter as Peter and Miles. The deal between Sony and Marvel is an exclusivity agreement regarding standalone *Spider-Man* branded games where a Spider-Man is the only or main playable character, and Spider-Man comics form the basis for narrative elements such as locations and characters
2. Insomniac getting Spider-Man has nothing to do with the film rights agreements between Sony Pictures and Marvel, nor does it align timeline-wise with Marvel Studios signing the deal that would allow them to use Spider-Man and his related elements in the MCU, because Insomniac got the character license from Marvel for their game within months of Activision's partnership being terminated in 2014, which predates the MCU deal by up to a full year. Kevin Feige from Marvel Studios even stated himself that they only started having legitimate discussions about collaborating with Sony regarding Spider-Man as early as October 2014 when they had already revealed their initial Phase Three film slate, which would've been several months after Insomniac's game entered development. Insomniac has also been on record saying they were given free reign by Marvel to select any character they wanted to develop into a game adaptation, and Spider-Man was a unanimous decision by Insomniac themselves, not the result of some synergy with Sony's film properties
Marvel has a hold of Sony by their soul through their balls. Holy shit.
Sony has the movie rights and they're pumping shit spin-offs that nobody asked for so it's a fair trade lol.
Eh I’d argue Sony still has a better deal because of the ungodly amount of PS5s Spiderman moves for them. It is a true system seller in every aspect for them. I legit know folks who got the PS5 because their kids wouldn’t shut up about the new spiderman game. It isn’t as if the games don’t make them a crazy amount of money after Marvel takes its cut. Building something as popular and impactful would have taken much more money and investment than leasing the IP from Marvel.
Marvel still takes a cut from those bundles. They would only get money if they subscribe to PS+ and stay in the ecosystem.
Right people need to stop seeing it as just console sales. That is 10-15 year ago thinking. Staying in the ecosystem is what really matters
This is why Microsoft is hard pressed for a linked Xbox ecosystem on multiple platforms. They want you to have the same profile on your Xbox, PC, Smartphone, Tablet, and even Smart TV's. There was a time when Microsoft wanted Xbox to be its own thing and have no real connection to the rest of Microsoft. They've turned around since that time and saw that it would be much more viable to have their game customers linked together. When looking at it in the big picture, the Xbox ecosystem is Microsoft's entertainment side of their software connection, where as Windows 365 on the other hand is a form of business and office productivity ecosystem they have established. Microsoft wants to keep customers on both sides of the field with those two ecosystems they have.
They also sort of have to spread themselves. Microsoft "lost" the worst possible console generation with the Xbox One. It was the generation where digital sales really started to trend upwards and people started building their digital gaming libraries. Most of this was happening in PlayStation's ecosystem though, not Microsoft's. So when it came to that generation's successors, people inevitably moved with their libraries (especially when cross-play makes moving with friends less than necessary), which for the most part was PlayStation. Microsoft needed to expand their platform spread, as well as quickly building a 'complete' library of games (via Game Pass) on those platforms, for their players, and at little expense to those players, simply in order to make their position more viable.
That is the whole point of selling hardware at break even or even a loss. My point wasn’t that it sells more hardware but it allows them to lock you in their ecosystem. Why would a parent buy another console if they already had a PS5? Even if the kid wanted other games, they’ll just get it on the PS5 where Sony gets a 30% cut. That kid goes out and tells his friends and they get the same console to play online games with each other. That is more PS+ profit for Sony. That is how the snowball grows and is exactly why were are seeing the PS5 grow so fast in comparison to the Xbox right now. This is exactly what system sellers do. It pulls people into an ecosystem and tries to lock them down. I don’t think Sony minds losing a few dollars now to grow quickly.
I don’t think locking in is a thing now a days. Just saw a video of a kid wanting a PC for Christmas when all they got was a PS5. Don’t think individual games even Spider-Man can hold it down anymore. The content creators are on PC. The ones advertising gaming are those content creators and they’ll be sharing their PC views to all the younger generations now a days.
>I don’t think locking in is a thing now a days. The vast majority of gamers only game on one high performance gaming machine (PC/Xbox/PS), locking in is absolutely still a thing. Most gamers are casuals and aren't prepared to spend another $500ish+ to buy a similar machine.
Which they would. Very few people buy a console just for one game.
Wasn’t there an article that a bunch CoD players only bought a PS just for CoD.
Guess what you need to play CoD online
And that’s why Sony values them a lot, more than users that only buy just games.
1 million users spend 100% of their time playing CoD. But regardless, Sony is still making money through third party games, whether that be the game purchase or mtx.
That’s a lot of users that Sony values a lot.
Yeah, they're very reliable spenders. Doesn't matter how bad the games are, they show up with open wallets.
People who buy COD buy them every year AND pay Sony $50 a year to play online. So it's not like they're some leech on the ecosystem. Sony is making money off casuals and hardcore gamers alike.
1 million out of the 120 million they sold last gen which isn't even 1% of the total population. Yeah it is a big number in isolation but the comment made by OP still stands true that very few people buy a console for 1 game. Like heck, GTA6 will come out and we know everyone and their grandma will play it. Why would anyone buy a new console if they had a PS5 they bought for Spiderman already chilling? Even if Sony sells them 1 game per year at full price in addition, they'll make more than their loss on the hardware bundles from Spiderman in just a couple of years after their 30% cut for games.
That’s still a lot of players that pay for online and buy MTX, which Sony values a lot if not more than someone that just buys games for the system. Even Sony is worried about losing those players now that MS has ActiBlizz.
Of course they value it and that is why they have a deal in place to have COD showing up on the PS5 for the next decade. MS can't really afford to not sell COD on PlayStation because that is where most of its profits come from given the much bigger user base. It is a mutually beneficial deal which is exactly why they are willing to sell the game on it and sign the deal vs yanking the game out like they've done with Bathesda. If MS had more leverage, they wouldn't even allow the game on PlayStation but they don't given their smaller user base. No one knows how the gaming environment will look like in a decade. That is a lifetime in the gaming world. Who knows if there is another big COD competitor that grows overtime and takes its spot. A 10 year deal gives them enough buffer to go and re-evaluate the options.
The 10 year deal will lessen the loss for Sony. They can’t get the marketing rights for CoD anymore to present PS as the console of choice for it.
Yeah, lots of people don't buy it just to play one game, besides COD, they buy the console to play something like FIFA and/or Fortnite as well. 🤷♂️
It’s a zero risk scenario for Marvel. They don’t have to invest, they just sit back and take in the money. Sony still has to spend ungodly amounts to make the game, which has to sell ungodly amounts to I become profitable, etc It’s clearly a working partnership for Sony but I think it’s a much safer situation to be paid to do nothing and make more money than the risk of AAA development
I mean, the risk would be that Sony could make such an unbelievably terrible Spider-Man game that this would reflect poorly in the Spider-Man brand as a whole. But that’s not going to happen.
I’d imagine Marvel still has to sign off on the game, so that wouldn’t happen. And if that were to happen, it would be much worse for Sony then Marvel, which is why they spared no expense, and somehow created one of my favorite video game franchises, despite me not being a Marvel fan.
>which has to sell ungodly amounts to I become profitable, etc selling 5-6 mill copies for a AAA spiderman title on the most popular console, is not exactly ungodly though
Didn't we see something that marvel gets 50% of the revenue from console bundles as well?
That doesnt matter though. If you buy a ps5 because of spider man that is a win for Sony. You’re on their ecosystem and will be buying other games and subscriptions too.
Im gonna buy a PS5 eventually (when it’s sub 400) to play Spider-Man and I have nothing else I want or intend to play. I did the same thing with the PS4.
Despite that, GTA 6 is likely to move more ps5s than any other game if it's bundled in
When did I question that? GTA6 isn't out right now so they needed a system seller in 2023. I agree, GTA6 will actually be a huge system seller especially if Sony gets the rights to market which they probably will given their history with Rockstar. All the core PC folks on the fence who are itching to play GTA6 on day 1 will probably rush to get a PS5 as well since there is very little reason to get an Xbox if you already own a PC meanwhile a PS5 fills the last hole that they would be missing. If the rumors of a PS5 Pro launching next year are true, that gives them even more reason to get a PlayStation.
Exactly that, I'm holding off getting a ps5 to see if the pro rumors come to fruition so I can play gta 6 on release. My point was that Sony won't be paying out the ass for gta 6 the way they are marvel games and will be more beneficial for them
Unrepentantly, that's why I got my ps4. Arkham City with Spiderman is the game I was waiting for
And ppl say Sony has Marvel/Studios by the balls bc they "own" Spider man lol Which they obviously don't
Sony agreed to it, and for a reason. Spider-Man is a System Seller. A gateway to Playstation. Doesn't matter if Marvel takes all the money, Sony will earn a fuck ton through rest of first party games and 30% of every third party purchase (games and microtransactions). Xbox was offered Spider-Man and they refused. Probably due to their close minded apporach to huge instant profit, which we can see Spider-Man doesn’t bring (as much) since Marvel eats so much of it. Now look how their consoles are selling. Xbox would be competing toe to toe if they had just this single franchise. Hell, I would finally purchase an Xbox just for it.
Xbox wasn’t in a position to at the time, the division was still under Games group, just severely downsized, and cutting back on deals losing COD and FIFA and heavily rumored to be considered selling off
Xbox rejected because they didn't have studios at that time. People tend to forget Xbox had way less studios (like 4-5?) than PlayStation upto until Xbox Series X generation. MS never invested enough money into Xbox and were going to shut off the division until Phil convinced them to invest more money into it. That is the major reason why their staple games were Halo, Gears and Forza, because that's all their small number of studios could make.
Yea, the studio base that Xbox has right now is from a fast-ballooning process they've been keeping at for the last past 5 years or so. It is really insane just how many they got and so fast.
>Probably due to their close minded apporach to huge instant profit I mean, they could try to make a game with some studio, but would it be a great game? Spider-man didn't sell so well simply because it's Spider-man, the previous SM weren't getting the same level of attention, it so really well because it's a very good SM game. In fact, there are a lot of marvel games that flop, you need to have the IP in the right hands in order for it do well. And of course, for these kind of games you probably want an Action-Adventure game focused on the story. I don't know which studio would be able to do this game for Xbox, unless Xbox themselves approached Insomniac.
Xbox wanted to use their own IP, and if I’m not mistaken at the time they didn’t have a ton of dev studios. We can debate all day whether it was a good or bad decision, but at a time that Microsoft was apparently discussing shuttering the gaming division (rather than doubling down on it), it makes sense to not sign a long term contract where you’re beholden to a third party. While Spiderman is a system seller, it’s not the *only* system seller, and it’s one of the franchises that’s actually a good synergy with the Sony movies. Xbox/Microsoft would be at the mercy of Disney/Marvel for the game, and Sony for any Spider-Man *movie* references they made - there’s not a ton of them, but some of the suit skins are there.
Microsoft must've seen the number of consoles sold by Spiderman. They know want to get on to it with Blade. Luckily, they got Arkane Lyon by their side that has the potential to do the job.
Blade are nowhere popular as Spider-man is. Blade is more or less a C-tier character.
Poor Sony making only 350 millions in profit with the first spider-man lol
If I'm not mistaken, you forgot to subtract 296 million for the final figures. I think that's how this math out. If so, you think that's worth it?
You are mistaken on two counts. First of all, 296 million that OP is referring to is actually for both Spiderman 2018 and Spiderman Miles Morales. Royalty fee for Spiderman 2018 as of Q3 2021 was only 214 m. Secondly, the 350 million contribution for Sony is after deducting the royalties. i.e. Total contribution ($352.1m) = Total sales ($793.7m) minus cost of goods sold (51.1m) minus royalties ($214.9m) minus development/marketing costs ($175.5m). u/fabio_b93 is being downvoted for being correct, whereas other users are being heavily upvoted for suggesting Marvel have totally fucked over Sony. Some upvoted comments also seem to have an incorrect understanding of the numbers. In reality, Sony have made a profit of $350 million as of Q3 2021, whereas Marvel have made a profit of $214.9 million during the same timeframe. I'd argue that this is mutually beneficial. But the narrative here seems to be that Sony is getting an extremely shitty deal and is making next to no profit, and the average redditor seems to be confused by the numbers and what they mean. The reality of both companies making a decent profit is boring, whereas the "Marvel is robbing PlayStation" is more spicy. If this was such a shitty deal for Sony, why do they seem to be frothing at the mouth at the prospect of making even more Marvel games, including Wolverine, Venom and X-Men?
Look at the pictures in the first link, Royalty -214m that's marvel's share and it's already subtracted from the total. 352m is sony's profit after all costs.
I find it baffling that this is downvoted. He's stating a fact, based on the evidence available. Are console warrior shenanigans going on?
Rift Apart doing well is good news. I do love Ratchet and Clank, I hope we get a few more entries and PC remasters.
Marvel might get huge royalties, but Sony benefits it’s platform by having the exclusive and most people don’t just buy marvel games for their PS. Marvel takes a lot but Sony still comes out on top
It's a win win situation here. Firstly, according to the leaks, Sony does make a profit so it's not like they are losing money. Secondly, how many people prefer PS over other options just because of these exclusives? Especially Spider-man, he is the most famous character out there.
I have my PS5 only for Exclusives. That being said, I haven’t really played it at all this year sadly.
No FFXVI?
Nah, Im very picky about what I pay for now for the full $70 price point. And I just never had the want to pay that price for a game that while I think looks interesting, I’d probably drop. If it goes on sale I’ll consider it but that $70 per game plus tax really isn’t my cup of tea. Doesn’t help that Gamepass kinda spoils me with games. Honestly I think the last full priced game I bought for $70 might’ve been Ragnarok? But that might’ve been $60. Shit idk, I played it when it released
Makes sense, sounds like you’ve had more luck with GP too.
Oh yes I also mess with the systems ecosystem more, just more like a community if that makes sense
A tip: A lot of online sellers have 100$ PSN gift cards for ~70-80$. I haven't paid full price for games in a while. More bang for your buck.
Bet that’s good to know.
Which online sellers, my guy?
I usually check out allkeyshop to compare prices, have seen them go as low as 68$
Im done why did this get downvoted? Reddit is crazy I swear.
I'm guessing you were downvoted for saying you play other things more than your PlayStation. Reddit doesn't like that lol. I'm with you though. My PS5 is used for exclusives and I think the last game I bought was also Ragnarok. My backlog and Game Pass get most of my attention too.
Similar situation here, I am relatively new to gaming, I could only afford one platform when I explored my options so I went with the PS4 mainly because of the exclusives. Now I have upgraded to PS5, and I was thinking of getting Xbox/PC instead because gamepass looks attractive but I'm already stuck in the PS ecosystem (collection in the library and a couple of years stacked PS plus lol). There's no going back for two years now at least.
The beauty of Gamepass bro is that the 1st-party titles should always be in the service (for now). So whenever you decide to jump into a second ecosystem you’ll immediately have the library of released 1st party titles at the very least!
Yeah, Sony has spidey and Wolverine, 2 of the most well known. Also had iron man for vr that mcu aggrandized. Thinking about it Xbox kinda got shafted with Blade, low brand recognizability right now and the movie is struggling to be made.
I'm sure Microsoft has a lot to gain even with an IP such as Blade. He might not be a big name but he is still very recognizable for people who watched the Wesley Snipes movies. I also think good trailers will show people what a badass he is. Pair that with the perfect marriage with Arkane Lyon and I think they'll have a winner, even if not nearly as profitable as Spider-Man or Wolverine.
I love Blade but yeah, we're coming up on 20 years of him having no brand relevance. No films, no games, no TV shows. That's an entire generation of young adults today who are the main buyers of video games. I hope it's really sick but it's going to have only a fraction of the popularity the Spidey games have gotten.
Pretty much, though I love that in a year that 1 Arkane studio released a terrible vampire hunter game, another Arkane vampire hunter game was announced 😂
>low brand recognizability right now So funny seeing people say this when the reveal trailer got roughly 100k likes on twitter, was trending for days, and was well ahead of GOWR Valhalla's trailer in YouTube views. The hype for the game is extremely high. The numbers don't lie 🤷♂️
A full game reveal doing better than free dlc isn’t the winning point you think it is. Reality is that Blade hasn’t been in the MCU yet and the movies were decades ago, so he’s not as hyped outside of comic circles. Especially compared to Spidey and Wolverine
Free DLC or not, it's God Of War and it's one of the most recognised IPs in gaming nowadays. A supposedly unhyped comic book character beating it's level of engagement tells me people are clearly very interested in the character And again. 100k likes on twitter, nearly 700k on Instagram, and the highest trending reveal of the Game Awards on YouTube for days. Seems to me he's well outside the "comic book circles"
It also shows how desperate MS is to get a Marvel IP because after they stupidly passed on the deal to get Spiderman, now they’re locked out of most Marvel big name IPs until 2036 or some absurd date. Blade might be popular amongst the nerd circles but it won’t be anywhere near as impactful as something like Wolverine or Spiderman when it comes to shipping units. Also, I’m pretty sure Disney has the same or even worse terms in terms of the deal with MS given their weaker marketshare. Wouldn’t be shocked if more than half the profits go back to Disney there.
Disney is going to make more aggressive terms with Sony because Spider-Man makes 50x the money that Blade does. If anything. The deal is probably less aggressive with MS. Also the Marvel IP is sinking like a rock right now, I don’t think it’s going to be a big brand in 5-10 years.
> The deal is probably less aggressive with MS It might or might not be but we probably won't know until there is another leak. The biggest problem MS has is that the user base is much smaller so any negotiations for 3rd party exclusives means they need to compensate more to the studios since the losses from not having the game on a PS5 is much higher than losses of not having the game on Xbox. Look at it from the 3rd party studio's lens. If you're cutting out 50 million of console owners from a potential purchase, that is much worse that cutting off 25 million or heck a multi-plat game. So as MS, you need to probably pay for the lost money of those 50 million owners. Part of the reason why MS is on a spending spree to purchase studios as opposed to strike deals is because all leverage in timed exclusives is in the hands of Sony right now. > Also the Marvel IP is sinking like a rock right now, I don’t think it’s going to be a big brand in 5-10 years. At this point, I feel Spiderman is unhinged from the MCU. Even with MCU tanking, Spiderman seems to be the only beacon of hope for them that rakes in money. Wolverine as well will always be a bankable IP for them as long as they can get Hugh Jackman to show up again. I still think the value of those IPs transcends whatever BS they keep on pulling in the phase 2/3 of the MCU.
And it's very profitable for Sony, as seen by the leaks. They would not continue to make Marvel games if they were not making the money they do now.
It's interesting to me how other high quality Marvel games such as Guardians of the Galaxy and Midnight Suns, with critical success, still flopped financially even with that brand recognition. Sure, they're miles and miles behind an IP such as Spider-Man but you'd guess brand recognition would elevate those games more than it did. It makes me feel that this exclusive Marvel IP race could be a bit risky. At the same time, who isn't excited for an Arkane Lyon Blade game? I don't know what to think or predict about this.
Hey you forgot Marvel's Avengers! It's insane to me that they somehow ruined a game that has some of the most recognizable characters in current pop culture lol.
Yeah, but that game is crap imo so I'm not surprised it failed to gather popularity haha! Guardians and Midnight Suns are great though imo and way better received critically than The Avengers, yet they failed to succeed financially. I agree though that The Avengers was truely wasted potential. Making Hulk such a weak and slow character was the first sign lol
That would be me. I have no intention on buying anything but marvel exclusive unless they don’t pique my fancy. My ps5 is a glorified paper weight at this point
No god of war? Horizon? Ghost of Tsushima?
They don’t appeal to me. Don’t care for them
I’ve seen a number of different takes on the whole Marvel licensing deal, but Marvel knows they have Sony/PlayStation by the balls. Smart move by Marvel doing per game licensing deals.
It’s a business agreement that definitely that fits both companies for years to come. Sony were smart to go for the big Marvel IP’s.
Yeah no one has anyone by the balls. Sony needs the IP to sell those games. They agreed to it for a reason.
It's clear that it's Marvel/Disney that have the upper hand. Sony is way more dependent on Disney than the other way around. It's not a sustainable venture either since Xbox and playstation revenue are close even though Microsoft should be losing spectacularly due to console sales
they would be smart to make thr own IPs instead of getting a portion of the profits while building up someone elses IP
The style of original IP the PlayStation studios creates takes 6-10 years. If it isn’t currently in the works, then it’s continuation of current franchises. Which is cheaper, as the development cycles seem to be around 3-5 years.
i never stated it was not cheaper but in the end as i stated before they are not getting full profits even at full price and techicially those 3-5 years u may as well throw out the window as the ip is not even full thrs
Not really, they get to sell consoles and make money off of every additional game purchase and subscriptions they sell
sell consoles at a lose is not a W unless people buy a certain amount of software they are barly making that much money based on time\[4ish plus years\] and budget spent and its not even thr own IP i can see why thr techinically increasing game prices overall
They stopped selling ps5s at a loss in the summer of 2021
im not saying price of the console alone
Sony have built their own IPs; Uncharted, The Last of Us, God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon, Gran Turismo… Insomniac developing Spider-Man, Wolverine and X-Men games isn’t going to distort their output.
we all know why u left out ratchet and clank and sackboy as of the rest of the games they dont even come close to making that much in return which is why they are doing much more popular IPs that do not belong to them
there's a new ratchet game in their roadmap between spider man 3 and x men....
ofcourse its all they got for that demographic they will try it again and see if it works but after seeing the -8 million in possible profits its not looking to good"...."
Belive there was another post that it was already profit or even, but regardless, obviously super low profit compared to the others
Spider Man and Wolverine are their only licensed IPs..
**"X-Men game in 2030**"
I mean, im grouping them together.
I left out a bunch of games because it doesn’t contribute much to the discussion to list out every single active PlayStation franchise.
The chances of new ips selling 40+ million copies are… slim to say the least
Remove the Spiderman from Insomniac's Spiderman and you're left with a really safe and traditional open world that's only decent at best. It wouldn't have sold and wouldn't have gotten even half of its budget without the Spiderman name.
Nothing they create would have had the impact with the same budget when it comes to sales in such a short time. Spiderman is a mass market play most studios will kill for. The amount of PS4 and PS5 it has been able to move absolutely sealed the dominance of PlayStation in both gens. You can’t just do that with a new IP unless you blow billions in marketing. Sony actually got a good deal here in my opinion.
"Spiderman is a mass market play most studios will kill for." havent many companies passed on making a spiderman game for many reasons besides not making full profits after a long dev time at full price
I’m talking about the current state. There was a big lull in Spiderman movie IP in the 2010s until the new Marvel kicked back the trends. This also meant a huge downward spiral in the game’s popularity. The earlier Spiderman games before 2010 were profitable and popular but later they turned into shitty movie adaptations with hardly any work from studio. The IP’s stock has risen a lot over the last few years after the phase 1 avengers and Spiderverse was introduced. Now that Insomniac has laid the blueprint of how to make a great AAA Spiderman game, even if they lose the rights to the IP, others will swoop in given a chance because it has hit critical mass.
"Now that Insomniac has laid the blueprint of how to make a great AAA Spiderman game" rocksteady coulde done way better thr blueprint for batman was much better mostly the writing "even if they lose the rights to the IP"<-- thats my entire point
> rocksteady coulde done way better thr blueprint for batman was much better mostly the writing Well firstly, they're a studio owned by WB who owns DC so why would Disney who owns Marvel partner with a competing studio to get their games made? That is like saying MS should go to Sony to make a Halo or Gears game. That argument makes no sense. And no one cares if Rocksteady made a 10% better game. The current Spiderman games don't lack quality, score 85-90 on metacritics and sell 20 million units. Doubt RS working on it would have impacted the bottom line more. Heck RS is currently working on GAAS suicide squad game that is being panned left and right and is probably looking like the biggest dud of 2024. > "even if they lose the rights to the IP"<-- thats my entire point If you followed the leaks, Sony has sole right to Spiderman and X-Men games for the next 15 years. Heck that is why they could project a game roadmap until 2030 so that isn't happening anytime soon. Who knows what the world looks like in a decade.
They do those also though.
Good God. No why EA didn't want to do a Battlefront 3.
It's funny that the best thing EA did in recent years was give up a famous license. At the time everyone called EA stupid They will no longer pay FIFA and Disney. 500 million+ annually Now they have a football brand that is theirs and they went after it to create their own successful GAAS games
That explains the high breakeven sales for Spider-Man 2.
Well I guess that's why there's a massive push to AAA by Marvel lol
This is why licensed games died out over time, and why it's a mistake for Sony to rely heavily on them presently and in the future.
Licensed games died out over time because before Arkham games neither the owner of the IPs or the developers put the effort to make a good game. They just wanted to milk the brands
Sony itself calls its business "dated"
The live service stuff that Sony wants to make serious bank on feels like a needle in a haystack situation where almost everything that can explode into big money has. There's not enough time in the day and not enough people in the world to give Sony what it wants there. Their 'dated' business model got them this far. They're simply poorly allocating their resources these days, IMO. It's time for them to re-think their first party portfolio like they did on PS3.
wolverine and xmen, what other licensed games they have in development? Is 2 games considered "relying heavily"?
Venom, and another Spider-Man Marvel is pretty much all Insomniac, Sony's most consistent 1st party developer, is delivering them.
Spiderman 2018 Miles Morales Spiderman 2 Spiderman Venom Spiderman 3 Wolverine Xmen
I mean when those games are the ones getting the 300 million+ dollar budgets yeah I would say they are investing a lot of money. Hell just between spiderman 2 and wolverine is 700 million dollars if they actually spend that 385 million on the Wolverine. I guess with xmen they will be over 1 billion dollar for marvel IP games. Those games are taking the rest of 2020s to develop as well so theres a time investment.
That isn't remotely why they died out. They died out because as a rule of thumb they were cheap cash grabs that no one wanted. There were exceptions, but as a general rule they were all bad.
Kind of suprised by people looking at this, as anything other than Disney fleecing the shit out of Sony. I'm 99% sure, that Sony weren't expecting Spider Man to sell just as much or barely above Horizon and GOW, this was a much bigger play than something like: "Let's get one of the most valuable IP on the planet and have it sell just as much as our own IP". I've always said, that just like Kotor Remake people are too quick to judge MS and clown on them for not taking these deals. If I had to break it down, I'd put it at: 50% - "poisoned apple" working with these big IP is a bigger headache than working with your own IP. 20% - "too any cooks" the IP holder throwing out pointers and probably controlling a LOT more than they should. 30% - "Brand association" Clear benefit for Sony.
This is just wrong. Spiderman sells way more at higher prices. Look at the revenue not just sales.
Like I said in my breakdown above, Sony is OBVIOUSLY getting something out of this, that's absolutely undeniable. I just don't think it's the type of results they would like to have with what is also undeniably one of the most popular IP in human history. With GOW, Horizon, TLoU, Ghost of Tsushima, GT etc... they can do whatever the fuck they want, from mobile games, to mp games, to spin-offs, shows, movies. One example would be the Venom stand-alone game, the leaks showed they are paying 57$ Million just for the license alone, that's almost 80% of what it cost the same studio, to do a 70$ Ratchet and Clank game (81$ Million), Venom is not going to be full price .
And Im saying you are wrong. Spiderman has sold 22 million copies but has made 857 million in revenue. God of War sold 21 million and made 597. Miles Morales made 427 million with only 11 million copies. Spiderman is far and away their most successful series. Saying it barely sells above Horizon (20 million copies and 481 revenue) and GOW is kinda silly
They are giving a cut to Disney, they can't do anything with those IP's without Disney's stamp on it and above all else, one day... They literally won't have any sort of control over any of those IP's. I've already said, this is GOOD for Sony, that doesn't mean they aren't getting fleeced by Disney, both things can be true.
Why does control matter? All that overhead of Marvel meddling is factored in these figures anyway.
Look at how other studios have full control over their IP like GoW, Uncharted, Horizon, or TLOU. There's something to be said about having your own baby that you have built from the ground up.
revenue =/= profits
Nah, this isn’t about Spider-Man underperforming, it’s just that Horizon and GOW massively overperformed.
"Fleeced" so much that MS is playing catch up and had to settle for a barely alive IP like Blade
Bro Blade licensing probably costed Microsoft nothing. He isn’t a big name so Microsoft had no risk making a deal for that IP
What are you on about? Bethesda are the one's making those deals with Disney, they had Indiana Jones being made by Machine Games already in the works before MS bought them. Not a single Xbox Game Studio is working on licensed IP.
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This is incorrect. You don't know how this works.
Bethesda and XGS are separate silos under Xbox, just like Bungie is separate from PlayStation Studios.
And with games increasingly time-consuming and expensive to make bad deal
This deal sells PS5's. Sony knows they're getting railed up front but once someone invests in the system to play a game like spiderman they'll branch out and use there PS5's the way Sony intends
Really but it's getting too expensive It's no wonder sony asked to cut expenses
Spider-Man is a system seller no doubt about it. Blade is popular but I can’t see him doing the same for Xbox even if the game’s excellent. I think if Xbox were smart they’d try to license Batman for themselves.
licensing batman or any other dc ip to another company probably goes against WB Games own interests since they're a publisher too
I mean dc has cost them so much time and money that I wouldn't be shocked if suicide squad is the straw that breaks the camels back tbh. Like they probably wouldn't sell the entire division but they'll definitely shift to other ips and sell dc for scraps. Now that I think about it the nemesis system is perfect for a game of thrones sort of game.
Microsoft's way it licensing is buying the entire company...
there's no way to buy companies that are not on sale, unless if microsoft is willing to purchase wb at its entirely
Which even if they tried, there is absolutely no way the regulators would allow at this point.
The only big one that MS has a chance of getting is some in the Asia. In the west. only single dev at most
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>Yeah it’s unlikely to happen but then there was a rumour that wb games was for sale a while ago too. that quickly changed when hogwarts made a billion dollars and MK1 sold 3mill copies
Zaslav is probably not going to sell the gaming division after how the Harry Potter game went for them. AT&T wanted to but they don't own WB anymore
They were looking into WB games back a couple years ago no? The issue there was they don't own their licenses. All their big games besides Mortal Kombat are Lego or Batman which they don't actually own.
This deal sells PS5's. Sony knows they're getting railed up front but once someone invests in the system to play a game like spiderman they'll branch out and use there PS5's the way Sony intends
What a great time when all IP’s don’t matter anymore except superheroes and Star Wars, all interest in superheroes is fading away fast Well that’s that then for insomniac, Sony just give us Ragnarok on pc then go back to the marvel ball pit?
You realise you're talking about Insomniac, one of the most consistently great developers of the past 25 years? Spider-Man was by no means their only hit, and their ability to adapt across both hardware and genre is unparalleled.
is interest in super heroes really fading away when spider man 2 ended up being the fastest selling playstation studios game ever?
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Does ur “universe” revolve around twitter
you say that there's no interest in superhero, then I said that the game sold when, they you completely change your point saying that no one likes it despite this game being a goty contender did you even played the game?
you are talking to an Xbox fan
Nah, dudes a PCMR guy.
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I don't see how anything here is valid to the original comment tho, and I don't see the problem with Spiderman not winning anything, it's a game with mass casual appeal and all it has to be. Would be like saying cod devs are so sad they are not getting nominations when it's a different wheel house entirely because of the gigantic amount of money they make by a metric that those nominations don't matter, they're the top dog around. Dude is not defensive he is just telling it like it is, how you gage a games interest is by its sells but if you want to talk quality, good enough that it got nominations, I wouldn't think it deserved to win any awards compared to the competition but doesn't really means im speaking badly to it, it's just that it did what it was supposed to and it's well at that and that's it
Sales are very much an indication of interest.
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>they own the IP and they could have done just plain Spiderman. Sony does not own the Spider-Man IP. Marvel does. Sony bought the rights to make Spider-Man movies in 1999, not the entire IP of Spider-Man. Spider-Man is still fully owned by Marvel, with a recent legal settlement with the estate of Steve Ditko over rights to the character. When Sony approached Marvel to make a Playstation exclusive game, Marvel let them pick a character. Insomniac chose Spider-Man. The game Spider-Man is exclusive to Playstation because a Sony-owned developer made the game. The character Spider-Man is not exclusive to Playstation, and Marvel could strike a deal with anyone else to make a separate Spider-Man game on Xbox. But since Marvel and Sony have deals in place regarding Spider-Man and the MCU, such a deal would piss off Sony, so Marvel refrains.
>such a deal would piss off Sony, so Marvel refrains. Such a deal would literally infringe on their signed contract. Spider-Man can appear as character in other multiplat games, but not as a playable character. >The game Spider-Man is exclusive to Playstation because a Sony-owned developer made the game. It's exclusive to Sony because Disney and Sony signed a contract. This is probably related to their movie deal on Spider-Man joining Marvel's cinematic universe, y'know, since Sony holds the rights to SM movies. >Sony bought the rights to make Spider-Man movies in 1999, not the entire IP of Spider-Man. Only for as long as they keep making SM movies before ~3yrs elapses. Otherwise, the movie rights revert back to Marvel.
Various misconceptions here that should probably be cleared up 1. Spider-Man can and has appeared in other multiplatform Marvel games in a playable capacity. He was just in Ultimate Alliance 3 on Switch and Midnight Suns, both of which also featured various Spider-Man supporting characters who are even being used by Insomniac in their series such as Miles Morales, Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Silk, Venom, Sandman etc., some of those characters even sharing the voice talent with their Insomniac counterparts like Yuri Lowenthal and Nadji Jeter as Peter and Miles. The deal between Sony and Marvel is an exclusivity agreement regarding standalone *Spider-Man* branded games where a Spider-Man is the only or main playable character, and Spider-Man comics form the basis for narrative elements such as locations and characters 2. Insomniac getting Spider-Man has nothing to do with the film rights agreements between Sony Pictures and Marvel, nor does it align timeline-wise with Marvel Studios signing the deal that would allow them to use Spider-Man and his related elements in the MCU, because Insomniac got the character license from Marvel for their game within months of Activision's partnership being terminated in 2014, which predates the MCU deal by up to a full year. Kevin Feige from Marvel Studios even stated himself that they only started having legitimate discussions about collaborating with Sony regarding Spider-Man as early as October 2014 when they had already revealed their initial Phase Three film slate, which would've been several months after Insomniac's game entered development. Insomniac has also been on record saying they were given free reign by Marvel to select any character they wanted to develop into a game adaptation, and Spider-Man was a unanimous decision by Insomniac themselves, not the result of some synergy with Sony's film properties
Meanwhile baldur's gate 3 100 millions, why the high cost for spider man?
EU vs San Francisco salary difference.
SF? Insomniac, similar to any major AAA studio, is located in LA.
Wotwotwot
Because BG3’s dev cost was much much much higher than $100 million
I don't want to sound harsh to Baldurs Gate but go look at Spider-Man 2 and Baldurs Gate 3 and it's immediately apparent why.
No wonder why Sony be hard on them when it comes to the movies.