Xbox Reportedly Turned Down Marvel Deal, Leading to Spider-Man’s PlayStation Exclusivity

comingsoon.net:

and have been big exclusives for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, but things almost played out very differently. According to an excerpt from Steven L. Kent’s 2021 book, Xbox had passed on making a deal with Marvel, which left an open door for Sony.

Said excerpt recently floated around on ResetEra and had quotes from Vice President and Head of Marvel Games Jay Ong. Activision and Marvel prematurely ended their  game deal because neither party was satisfied with Activision’s licensed games. Activision then reportedly told Marvel: “Good luck finding your unicorn.” (The thread uses “Spider-Man license” and “Marvel license” almost interchangeably, but it’s unclear if they are actually one in the same, given the complications of licensing.)

Ong was on a pursuit to find a publisher that had not embraced the “crappy licensed games” mentality, which is a very direct shot at Activision and its less-than-stellar licensed game review scores. According to Ong, Spider-Man needed “needed new talent, a bigger budget, and fresh eyes” to go beyond what Activision had done with the hero.

Ong said he needed a publisher with a “deep pool of talent, commitment to quality, and inexhaustibly deep pockets” to realize the potential he knew was there. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo were three possible candidates that fit the bill and had an “eye for long-term investments, one with a vested interest that would benefit from building a franchise.” Any talk of Nintendo getting the license seemed to die pretty early because Nintendo “mostly developed games based on its own intellectual properties.” However, Microsoft, a far more realistic partner, said it wanted to focus on its own IP when asked.

This rejection then led Ong to PlayStation’s Vice