Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Swings 11 Million Sales as Sony Calls PS5 Exclusive a 'Great Success'

This franchise has really reached the end of its life in its current guise. I really enjoyed the first one, but lasted 1hr into MM and can’t bring myself to even start 2. They desperately need to innovate.

It was a good game, but not a great one. It played very similar to the first one, didn't really evolve. I enjoyed the story, but at the same time, some of the turns it took were jarring. Whether it was Game of the Year nomination worthy, I'm uncertain though. However, it is the kind of game that many will enjoy playing, so will sell well...

@thefourfoldroot1 MM its a bit bland, but Spidy 2 is great, if you enjoyed 1, I really recommend you to try 2

Those numbers are impressive and higher than I thought they’d be. Personally I loved the game, but it got buried in the hype last year of Baldur’s Gate 3, Tears of the Kingdom, etc. The online narrative that the game was just ‘more of the same’ is really only partially true and I thought it expanded just enough and yet kept the solid fun gameplay elements from the first two games. It was third person action gaming comfort food and certainly not any worse than the recycled releases of other franchises we see all the time. [cough]COD[cough]Madden[cough]

@thefourfoldroot1
It's the toothless storytelling with over the top inoffensive utopia Disney characters. So bland beyond belief.

The gameplay though, huge improvement on the Activision games, but still needs better physics and swinging...
Turning off the autopilot for the swinging for nerds like myself was a huge deal. I'd argue it should've been the default, but still.

Lots of improvements needed for SM3

@Th3solution
Well it is more of the same... They set a good enough blueprint and then keep releasing variants of that. Factory made games. Welcome to modern gaming

would like something else than spiderman 3

I get what you are saying about CoD and Madden, @Th3solution, but you cannot expect a game that is grounded in some form of reality to take much of a turn, can you? War against humans is always going to be similar, as is sport...

Spider-Man and Batman are the only comic book heroes I pay attention to in film or gaming - they've always been my favourite but I've been waiting for a decent sale price for Spidey 2 forever. I made the mistake of buying Ragnarok at full price while I had (an ongoing) backlog of great games and have only just started that adventure. First world problems. One thing I dislike about sequels in the action game genre is having to upgrade abilities all over again - this is often explained with a story element like the Fimbulvetr winter in Ragnarok. I understand why but grrrrr.

Yep, Spider-Man, Hogwarts or Star Wars, you are normally onto a winner there.
That or a top Nintendo franchise.

@thefourfoldroot1 I'm in the same boat, except I finished MM. After putting it down I was pretty much done with Insomniac Spidey, I had zero interest in 2, and the first one was my GOTY. It's a fun formula, but it's been milked dry for me. I'll play 2 someday when it's either given away on PS Plus Essential or the physical version drops below $20

And it's weird, because Insomniac has been really good about not doing Ratchet games to death the last two generations. They seem to realize they have to space them out to keep it fresh, sort of like Nintendo only giving us one 3D Mario per console, and yet they haven't made this connection with Spidey. Or they're being forced to churn them out by higher-ups.

@Specky Like I said, there’s some truth to the ‘more of the same’ complaints, I just think it’s a little overstated. There were nice wrinkles with the different set pieces and modified powers. But yeah, it is similar to the other games.

By no means does it deserve the technical admiration of what innovation BG3 brought, and perhaps even TotK (although I even heard some complaints it was too iterative from BotW). But I think the SM2 complaints were a smidge exaggerated. But I also think every FPS I’ve played feels the same and can’t understand why people keep playing them, so maybe the problem is with me. 😂

@Nekomichu Miles to me was more exciting because it was unexpected and came out of nowhere. SM2 was exactly what I expected and the game was too predictable.

@Fiendish-Beaver Sure, a genre and a theme will inherently be consistent and similar. I think my issue with the annualized retreads of COD, Madden, FIFA, NBA2K, etc is that they drop every year for $70 for what is often very little change from the year prior. It would make more sense to be a $20 roster update instead of a full priced release. This is probably a lot less true of COD, but like I said above, every FPS I’ve played feels very samey, no matter which game it is. 😅

I’m not a fair judge of any of these popular annual franchises and obviously don’t buy them, so I fully admit to my own ignorance there. But I’m going off of reviews, videos, and secondary impressions. Perhaps many of the complainers of SM2 are also not connoisseurs of the superhero third person action genre. I suspect a lot of the SM2 hate also comes from those who never played the game and just watched gameplay (like me with COD).

But anyways, my point is that I don’t think SM2 wasn’t any more samey than Black Ops 3 vs. Black Ops 4, but I could be wrong.

@Shad361 I enjoyed both tbh, because I enjoy so much the gameplay of this game, but I didn't connect with the plot and villains of Miles, and overall was more like a dlc than a game.

I know some people who doesn't liked Miles, but they tried Spidy2 and love it, that's why I was suggesting it

@Frmknst £200 million development costs include salary, and if the average price a person paid for the game was £60 then that's £660 million in revenue. So that leaves £460 million in profit to go into Sony's pocket, if that's not a success to you then I don't know what is.

I wonder if Spider-Man sales are boosted by the PC and of course, the PS5. Even if it was 'playable' via BC on PS5, they also 'sold' a PS5 Remastered 'upgrade' that may have counted as a 'Sale' too.

SM2 isn't on PC yet and hasn't got a 'remastered' version to buy even if you bought the OG version so maybe won't sell as many - at least not until its released on Steam...

It's funny how Sony can do it but third parties struggle with exclusives.
There has to be more to this.

@Nekomichu I agree that part of what SM2 accomplishes is that you do have the option to spend more time with Peter if you like him better or with Miles if you like him better. Obviously you have to push each protagonist’s story forward eventually, but if you like the style of one over another you have the freedom to choose.

Personally I split my time fairly evenly but I leaned a little more toward Peter because of his new moves and powers, even though I liked the Mile Morales ‘expandalone’ game more than SM1. But I think that was mainly because the MM game felt tighter with fewer annoying puzzles and fetching activities than SM1. I think SM2 balanced the puzzle and stealth sections and Mary Jane stuff a lot better than the first game. It flowed better and the new set pieces (like the Coney Island sequence for example) also added some flavor to the experience. The characters were good, imo, and I especially liked Peter and Harry’s relationship.

@UltimateOtaku91 Sony doesn't keep every cent of that 60 though, some of it's going to Marvel, and for physical a large chunk is going to the retailer who buys the game for less than 60 then sells it at MSRP. Digital is closer to the full 60, so it's good for Sony that the majority is digital these days.

It's a success, but not a half a billion in profit success. Probably closer to 100 million than 500 million after subtracting marketing and whatever retailers/licensee get from each sale. Not as dire as his original comment but not doubling its development costs either. Which is why Sony suits are so keen on live service, I imagine. If a massive success like Spidey 2 gets out-earned by AA live service like Helldivers that gets their attention.

Big marvel fan ...but these games just are not as good as the hype suggests....don't handle a candle to the Arkham games....I completed both Spiderman and miles morales ...and I bought Spiderman 2 day one...and have only got about 3 hours in....p.s the games are fine ..just not as good as suggested in my opinion

I wonder what Ragnarok is at now. I think it was at 11 million after 3 months, so it should be at least past 15 million by now.

30% of those sales going straight to Disneys pockets

@Frmknst dont forget disneys 30% cut

@glennthefrog Sony get $70 from every digital copy(it’s never been on sale) and around $40 for physical sales. So with a 50/50 split it would be netting $55 a copy over those 11m sales. So likely around $600m net.

Total cost was ~$300m, that’s for insomniac, marketing and a proportional running cost for every Sony support studio that worked on the game, and all outsourcing.

It will also sell another 10m+ copies in its lifetime, the previous game still makes the top 20 psn games in NA some months.

Lifetime net income is likely to approach $1b.

dont forget disneys 30% cut

They get 19-26% on physical sales(that’s the $40 wholesale price, not the $70 sticker price) and 9-18% on Digital sales. The exact number will be based on performance, more sales = lower rates so it’s very likely Sony will hit the lowest possible rates at 19% and 9%.

So at the end of the day probably about $800m to Sony for $500m profit and about $150m to marvel

@Frmknst it's not like it's gonna stop selling tomorrow. So, it's a great success considering how much it's sold so far.

@Americansamurai1 it was 15m at 12 months

11 million copies sold and 11 or so people came here to say they hated it. Lol ok.

@ChrisDeku so it should be over 20 million

@Atreus97 reading some of these comments you'd think it was the worst superhero game ever made lmao.

Loved the first one. It had it's issues but for the most part they were minor. MM was good but I think I played it too soon after the first game and it all felt like a shrunk down version of the mainline game.
Haven't got to S2 yet, gonna wait til maybe next year before having a look at that.

It blows my mind how quickly the PlayStation fans turned on Spider-Man. I thought it was great with a few flaws - those Mary Jane missions were duuuuuumb. Insomniac doesn’t miss.

@ProfessorNiggle @Atreus97 This is sadly the nature of comments sections, as I've observed over a whole decade of writing on this site!

There's obviously nothing wrong with disliking the game, but the vast majority of people who click this article simply read it and then leave. The only people who feel the need to comment are the people who either A) want to get their personal point across or B) want to engage with the site / community.

And let's face it, people are much more inclined to comment when they feel the need to air a potentially unpopular opinion because ultimately, they're looking for justification from others. From there, it's usually a snowball effect.

The biggest disappointment of last year. Dull characters, ridiculous side quests - its a game that has you playing as anything BUT Spiderman !
Why are the characters so dull and nice to everyone all the time ?? Peter and Miles are absolute wet lettuces, like Disney high school characters. And why does playing as both Spidermen feel more like I'm playing as a Jedi Knight ?
Those ridiculous open world filler side quests- no, I don't want to follow your grandads inhaler trail for 3 miles, no I have no interest in destroying atoms, yes I'm sick of playing Power Generator Simulater 2. Not to mention playing as a deaf girl tagging graffiti- just let me be Spiderman !!! Plus those annoying Danikasts.....really ?
I still can't believe Insomniac never listened to feedback on the first game that no one wants to play as stealthy Mary Jane ( the DUUULLLEESSTT, plastic character ) so they include more but hey, this time, let's give her a gun.
Overall, the writing and dialogue is terrible - pure PreTeen cringe. Peters voice when he wears the black suit is beyond cringe.
There was an added trophy for finishing New Game Plus ...play it again ? Never in a million years.
Rant over. Sorry 😅

N.i.c.e. 🕷 spiderman 2 is a excellent game.word up son

@Atreus97 my thoughts exactly. Same with Ragnarok and pretty much anything other than Stellar Blade or Helldivers 2 it seems.

@ChrisDeku I appreciate the breakdown

I think it's extremely presumptuous to expect the majority of that hypothetical 20 million to be $70 purchases though. That's going to dent the profit a bit. I'll be one of those future buyers eventually, for $20 or less most likely. It may not have been on sale yet but that will be the norm for the back end of its lifespan.

@ShogunRok that is very true, gonna have to start remembering this everytime I scroll to the comments because it confuses me each and every time

@glennthefrog see now if that happens then I think Sony are completely justified in trying to make more live service titles. It's the same thing with those smaller games and Tokyo Studio, if no one is actually buying them and sales are declining, why keep pouring millions into them.

@ProfessorNiggle I personally loathe live service games, but I do agree it's a sign something has to change. AAA budgets have just gotten totally out of control. Sony, and everyone else in the industry, has to rein that in if they want to avoid a crash.

I'd offer the solution of not releasing bleeding edge hardware and not targeting industry-leading graphics. Sort of like Nintendo has done, except maybe less drastic. Stay one gen behind top of the line PCs and it would reduce costs tremendously. In that scenario the PS6 would only be an incremental improvement over the PS5 Pro, then resume generational leaps with PS7. I think this will be easier to achieve if Microsoft does indeed drop the Xbox hardware, at that point Sony's only competitor would be Nintendo who is likely to be close to a decade behind in hardware even with Switch 2. And they're further hampered by the handheld requirement, so little chance they push the envelope on hardware horsepower anytime soon.

@ShogunRok Different strokes for different folks and all that but a lot of these negative comments are just whinging or hyperbole rather than contributing to an intelligent debate.

Often how people write about something tells you more about them than the thing they are writing about.

I'm much like you, @Th3solution. The only game that I play from all those games you listed it CoD, and the only part of CoD that I play is the campaign! So in all honesty, I'm probably not the best judge here either, but I will say that in part, the CoD campaigns are different to some degree due to the differing settings and time periods. I cannot really comment on the online maps, though I have a feeling that these are mostly recycled year to year too.

I've always felt the same as you; asking someone to pay £70 each year for essentially the same players, but on different teams, is way too much. I've also always felt that the campaign should be sold separately from the online component of CoD, though that is mostly because that way I may not have to pay full price for the least popular component of the game! 😉

Well deserved - really liked the game. Better than the previous entries, but only just as they set a really high bar with their 1st.

Also, i may be odd but i thoroughly enjoyed some of the "low action" missions such as the school mission with younger peter.

(+insomniac are so far ahead of the curve in terms of technically getting the most out of PS5 with 1440 @ 75fps with raytracing).

Spider-Man will always be hamstrung by the need to make this game acceptable for younger gamers. For adults the storytelling will be too safe and boring, even juvenile, but they can't make it too dark like they sometimes have in the comics. Luckily the game play is fun itself so it's worth playing, but I don't think I'll ever be impressed with the writing, which is what makes or breaks a narrative game like this (for me).

@thefourfoldroot1 Well that's just you but it doesn't mean its a shared opinion.

Its a great game and gameplay wise easily the best Spidey game that said i prefer the first game as it had better pacing and a better story. Still its a great time and the expanded NY is great to explore and use as a playground, great huge skin selection as well. Really hoping DLC gets annouced tonight.

@Nem

Brand loyalty?

I liked Spider-man 2, but to be honest I sold it once I got the plat. Oddly my favourite one has been Miles's game.
I do feel it's got very repetitive now though, and it'd be great if Insomniac were allowed to do something else

Good news for Sony and Insomniac, although Sony still lay off some Insomniac employees despite the game sold well.

And Spidey 2 is probably the last big budget game for Insomniac that pass $200-300 million threshold. From the leaked, they knew they can't go nuts with the budget because it's not sustainable anymore.

@ProfessorNiggle I know right? I mean, we all know the vast majority of people love Spider-Man 2 and the other SM games! I mean, everyone is clamoring for some DLC, so here's hoping they'll show some here soon at the State of Play, or Summer Games Fest!

I'm not saying "just" 11 million but just 11 million

@Swirly This is what Insomniac wants though; making Marvel games and one Ratchet game every 5-8 years.

From the leaked, outside Wolverine for 2026, they will release a Venom game next year, Spidey 3 in 2028, a new Ratchet in 2029, an X-Men game in 2030, and then a new IP in 2031.

I think this week is the first discount for Spider-Man 2 in PSN - doing that much in sales at what was mostly full price (maybe some discounts for some physical sales?) is bonkers.

Once it starts going on the sale rotation and we get deeper discounts than the $20 this week, I think it will continue to sell. I'm toying with picking it up, finally, but haven't decided yet.

@Fiendish-Beaver Here’s where I like Sony’s approach — the Miles Morales, Lost Legacy, First Light type of approach of having a lower cost ‘expandalone’ is a great way to treat a quick turn around game with additional content that’s not quite a full sequel. I’d like to see third party explore this ‘in-between’ space a little more. Of course Sony has done the free route lately with GoW Ragnarok, Returnal, and GoT post release add-on content too. As well as more traditional DLC that is attached to the base game like the Horizon games had. But my preference is the standalone 7-8 hour game that is $25-40 to follow up a big hit game the next year or so. And in the case of SM2 I think it’s the worst kept secret that we’re likely to get that again, whether this year or next.

But when millions plop down $70 for the “new” FIFA or Madden, then I guess they’d be stupid not to continue to charge full price.

@Frmknst Games are fantastic but they need to dial back the budgets otherwise only the most famous IPs will make monet in the future.

@thefourfoldroot1
Mirrors my experience and feeling about all three games.

@glennthefrog They are most likely forced to churn them out. Even tho it seem the developers are fine with making the games. But that what happens when you deal with licensed game. You have to churn an “X amount out” or lose the license. It really why Sony have to dump out a bunch of Spider-Man Universe based movies even tho they all suck.

A few million is cause of the bundle with the new hardware. Sony bundles games to make sure they get the extra revenue from the game and it’s a good deal for the customer cause they got spider-man 2 a little cheaper.

@glennthefrog There's also more expensive deluxe editions and collectors editions with the venom statue.

Dont like the second game but congrats to Sony on reaching the milestone.

@0niguy as good as spiderman 1 was in the same timeframe with half the console base. Pretty big success tbh

@ShogunRok Amen.

the arkham games are better & i’m saying that as someone that always liked spiderman more than any superhero, but i can’t see myself replaying them much like i did with the arkham games . batman’s world , lore, writing , characters, combat is just far superior

I am just waiting on the definitive edition to come out.

@DogPark i agree a lot

I was really hoping for at least a little teaser of SM2 DLC in the State Of Play. I wanted to wait for all of it to release before diving into NG+. It felt really good playing it. It also looked beautiful on my OLED as well

I’ll probably replay one of the first two games soonish. My summer games are really only SMT V and maybe Elden Ring DLC depending on how much content it has. I’m probably missing something though 😂😂

Currently playing it. Does everything a sequel should. Definitely going for the platinum.

@glennthefrog I fully agree because the graphical output is at a really good level, we don't need every big game to push that further and further. I'd like to see what everyone thought would happen this gen which was that systems and CPU utilisation would improve.

I hear the need for shiny shiny graphics but really and truly last gen games look amazing still, we don't need it.

Sells half the amount of the first one and is a great success.

Two minutes into the game and it preaches to you about the environment. Then the symbiote infected boss fight of "you know who" was absolute cringe. I need to avoid spoilers but that boss in the Suburbs was so bad.

OK.....

I think its an excellent game. I loved the first but this one improved a good bit on it. Only thing i didnt like is with the costumes. I felt that each should have at least one unique ability and you should have the ability to stack some of those on a limited number of favorites as you got more. As is they are just cosmetic.

@Kelrics90 well the first one has been out a lot longer obviously and this one wil continue to sell. May not catch the first one but that doesnt mean this one wasnt successful.

2 was such an improvement over the first game and it's one of 4 games I've got the plat for.

Looking forward to the 3rd game