Xbox “passed” on Marvel games, so we got Spider-Man exclusively on PlayStation

It’s easy to assume that Insomniac’s Spider-Man games are PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 exclusives because Sony has the movie rights to the character, but apparently, that’s not the reason. A new book reveals that it’s actually because Xbox turned down a deal with Marvel.

The story is found in History of Video Games Vol. 2, and ResetEra user Nightengale brought it to light by posting an excerpt on the popular gaming forum. Jay Ong was hired as Marvel’s vice president of games in 2014, the same year that Activision (who then held the licensing rights) released the video game adaptation of the Andrew Garfield-led Amazing Spider-Man 2. As Ong explains it, Marvel wanted a partner who didn’t have “the ‘crappy licensed games’ mentality.”

Of the big three, Ong passed on asking Nintendo, since the company is known for focusing on its own properties. Ong then reached out to both Microsoft and Sony, but the former was actually in the same boat as Nintendo. “Microsoft’s strategy was to focus on their own IP,” Ong explained. “They passed.” We can see how this mentality continues at Microsoft and Xbox today, as the company continues to expand its first-party offerings with studio acquisitions like Bethesda and previous Marvel license-holder Activision Blizzard.

Sony does the same thing nowadays of course, but it was still more receptive to the deal at the time. Ong says that the company “offered to make a triple-A PlayStation-exclusive Spider-Man game.” A few years later, the result was Spider-Man on PlayStation 4 in 2018. Two years later, we got the standalone Spider-Man: Miles Morales as PlayStation 5 launch title.

Next up for the franchise is Spider-Man 2, which will pit Peter Parker and Miles Morales against Venom when it releases sometime in 2023. We don’t know much about the game’s features or story at this point, but it’s been compared to The Empire Strikes Back. Marvel novel writer Brittany M. Morris is working on the project.