Spider-Man 2
We are a week away from the Spider-Man 2 embargo dropping, and two weeks away from release. And looking to both last gen, and to this current PS5 generation, it is genuinely hard to imagine that there will be a bigger Sony game before we get the PS6.
This is not a commentary on the game’s quality, I am absolutely not breaking embargo for that. Rather, it’s a look back and forward at PS4 sales and current and future PS5 game sales, as well as the projects we know are in the works.
I do not believe people understand just what a big hit Spider-Man was on PS4. I’ve talked about this before, but it’s worth reiterating so close to the release of the sequel. Spider-Man was actually double the sales of almost every other big game on PS4, according to the last, separated-out data we have. And the games that were close? New installments are either not happening this gen, or have already come and gone.
Here’s the top 10 list from the PS4 generation:
- Marvel’s Spider-Man – 20 million sales (33 million, including Miles Morales)
- God of War – 19.5 million sales
- Uncharted 4 – 16 million sales
- The Witcher 3 – 10.8 million sales
- The Last of Us Part II – 10 million sales
- Horizon Zero Dawn – 10 million sales
- The Last of Us Remastered – 10 million sales
- Ghost of Tsushima – 9.7 million sales
- Star Wars Battlefront – 8.42 million sales
- Gran Turismo Sport – 8 million sales
So, what do you notice here? Well, Spider-Man was the first game in the series from Insomniac, while God of War had a whole series behind it, even if this was a departure from the old games. Uncharted was obviously the fourth game, The Witcher the third, TLOU the second. It takes all the way until Horizon Zero Dawn before we get to an original game, and the third one on the list is Tsushima. It stands to reason that a Spider-Man sequel would outperform the first one, already at #1 here, given how sequels to successful games usually trend in the industry. I would say no matter the review scores, this is likely to be true based on the IP alone, which is obviously doing a lot of the heavy lifting here.
God of War Ragnarok
We are still relatively early in the PS5 generation, but we have seen big titles come and go. God of War Ragnarok hit 11 million sales early. Horizon Forbidden West had 8.4 million by last count. Non-Sony exclusive Hogwarts Legacy racked up 15 million fast, but that was on all platforms. Final Fantasy, still very close, hit 3 million copies in its launch week. I believe Spider-Man should top most of these in short order.
Looking ahead, it’s hard to imagine any announced upcoming games that will hit these marks, short of something like Call of Duty, perhaps, though that may get complicated with the Microsoft situation. And of course GTA 6, if that does actually make it out before the end of this generation is over. But in terms of Sony hits, yes, I do believe Spider-Man is its biggest franchise by a mile. I don’t believe we’ll get another full God of War game this generation. Tsushima 2 and a Horizon 3 may do well, but not that well. For all the attention The Last of Us gets, it does not ultimately sell as well as GoW or Spider-Man. The reported new IP from Naughty Dog probably wouldn’t either. Maybe Insomniac’s own Wolverine game will be up there? Hard to say, as that will be a new venture too, but it has that big IP draw.
I do believe that Spider-Man will at the very least, be the biggest Sony exclusive of this generation in terms of sales. And we’ll know just how it starts off in under two weeks here.
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