I'm sure this will be a civilised and nuanced comments section.

It can be explained with a simple mathematical formula: Spiderman > Wolverine.

Spider-Man’s Spider-Man. Everybody loves Spider-Man. That’s the main reason.

I mean using Spidey as metric is kinda unfair as its Spider-Man. Has Wolverine ever been super popular in Japan?

@nessisonett Brand New Day recently overtook Star Wars to be the biggest domestic film ever. Spidey is just on a whole other level to everything else.

The game was never going to perform as well as Spider-Man, and I think everyone severely underestimates how bad Sony is doing in Japan. Even if the install base has only gone up, I would not be shocked if many of those units are untouched and forgotten in favor of the Nintendo Switch 2s. Hell I think toast year the S1 was still outselling the PS5 3 to 1 despite the S2 being out.

@DennisReynolds yes he is popular in Japan… but still, nowhere near Spidey’s popularity.

Considering the grief that fussy people where giving the game I'm not surprised.
Besides the fact that some games just sell better than others.
Such is life.

Good points above, but let’s not also discount superhero fatigue syndrome. I for one would like to see Insomniac do something different, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Don’t read too much into this. I highly doubt that the Japanese gaming audience is in tune as to what the West thinks.

Well Spiderman popularity in Japan is farrr above Wolverine. So 20K in the 1st week sounds decent considering it also released in the same week with a new Fire Emblem and Trails in the Sky SC remake.

@DennisReynolds Wolverine is quite popular in Japan, largely thanks to Marvel vs Capcom series. There's also a Wolverine manga written + drawn by Blame author Tsutomu Nihei as well an anime tv series produced by Madhouse.

@Balaam_ BND is still breaking records, Doomsday is looking to be even bigger if pre-release tickets are anything to by and Lanterns is one of the biggest hits in HBO history.

@Balaam_ You're not but unfortunately I think they own the Marvel licence for another 10 years is it? The leaked pipeline still shows plenty more Spidey, Xmen and Ratchet. There might have been an unannounced IP in there but that's about it.

@PuppetMaster Forget MvC would have been good exposure over there.

I don't think the target audience exists in Japan. I'm not sure it exists anywhere.

Without considering any other factors at play, I think Spider-Man is also just obscenely popular in Japan relative to other Western superheroes. With an even starker difference than other countries. He just has the kind of design that appeals more to that audience, so it's difficult to compare

@Mr-Cage Fussy people are unloading the game on eBay in massive numbers. It's already topping out at £35 in some auctions. Mental.

@LN78 Sure I wouldn't say there is much more to the game once you complete it.
Looks good fun to me but definitely a hit it and quit it game.

@Mr-Cage It's interesting - the last big franchise/licensed game (007 First Light) is holding its value much better.

Anybody know if thats like a cultural thing? Wolverine not as popular in Japan or we think its from all the negative press. Everyone I know whose played it has enjoyed it.

I think also another thing that could have contributed to it is that the game probably can't be sold as much depending on who the visuals of the violence are in Japan, because I know with a game as violent as Wolverine, it has probably gotten censored, or been given a Cero Z rating, which means it can't be sold by most conventional means in Japan, from what I understand at least.

Doesn't look like we will get the xmen games which hopefully we don't, so insomniac can finish venom and spiderman 3 and get out of the marvel factory and make ratchet and other new ips

@LN78 I haven't played that yet myself I'll probably pick it up on sale around Christmas.
In my opinion it looks a better game than wolverine and I think there's guaranteed dlc coming for the bond game aswell.
But yeah the wolverine price on ebay seems very low great cheap pickup it will be months before you could get it off the playstation store for anywhere near that.

This isn’t surprising considering any Spiderman game is much better than this Wolverine game.
People had higher expectations.

It could be age too, it's very easy to market Spiderman to children all over the world. The games already had the level of visibility and Parents were probably more likely to buy it for their children. Wolverine has that more mature demographic and all of that violence. I've been in children's hospitals for toy drives and things and saw Spiderman every now and then. I mean a man dressed as him, Spiderman pajamas and things too, children like him. I like Wolverine but my reason for that is less appropriate and my comment would be censored if I said why, he's niche in a good way.

I can totally see Spidey just being way more popular in Japan compared to Wolverine and that is reflected with the game sales.

@Americansamurai1 I'd love for them to make a local co-op ratchet/rivet game. There's definitely a market for it looking at split fiction, it takes twos' success.

Crazy that the guy who spends a lot of his time in Japan isn't popular there.

Spiderman is the better game thats why

I agree that you can't compare the popularity of these two characters. Spiderman is utterly massive, everyone loves him.

I doubt Wolverine will actually have long legs, word of mouth is stronger than reviews and influencers. If everyone is saying it's a mediocre game, not as many people will be picking it up.