Microsoft apparently refused to develop games for Marvel. To reveal this background was the book The Ultimate History of Video Games Volume 2, a new book from which some information was extracted, then reported on ResetEra. Indeed it would seem that in 2014 Marvel approached both Sony Interactive Entertainment and Microsoft at the same time.
When Jay Ong was hired as Vice President of Marvel’s video games section, the latter wondered first of all why the videogame sector was so little prolific compared to that of other mediaparticularly the movie world, with Avengers and other Marvel Studios films making impressive sums at the time.
Jay Ong, also relying on sales of titles such as Batman Arkham, saw the potential to make successful video games that could ride the wave of film productions, especially those of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For this reason, the perfect candidates were Sony PlayStation and Microsoft, especially the Xbox division.
Apparently, Microsoft would have surprisingly rejected the idea of developing a Marvel game. At the time, the book states, the Xbox division was focusing on its own IPs. As a result the offer passed to Sony, which then decided to entrust Marvel’s Spider-Man to Insomniac Games.
In short, we’ve been this far from seeing Marvel’s Spider-Man being an Xbox exclusive titleand given the success, it would have been a Killer Application not to laugh at. The funniest thing is that Insomniac Games could have always developed it. The team, after all, was pretty close to Microsoft at the time. Maybe, in another universe …
Of course, it must be said, however, Marvel’s Spider-Man was an almost isolated case. Square Enix attempted to replicate the success with Marvel’s Avengers, but sadly the game was characterized by numerous problems. The launch of Avengers itself also has also conditioned the reception of the much more valuable Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxycurrently available on Xbox Game Pass.
In the meantime, remember that Insomniac Games is currently working on two Marvel projects. The first is Marvel’s Spider-Man 2expected on PlayStation 5 in 2023. The game trailer ran in real timesays Insomniac, and the Venom interpreter has assured it will be a huge project.
He will then be followed by Marvel’s Wolverineof which shortly filming for Motion Capture will begin. The game, which will share the same universe as Spider-ManSara characterized by more mature tones. It is no coincidence that Walt Williams is in charge of the screenplay. This is the same writer who wrote the script for Spec Ops The Line.
Source: ResetEra