Microsoft originally passed on making Spider-man when Disney approached them

[Gizmo_Duck]

Pretty crazy. I know a lot of xbox stans swear Sony ‘stole’ spider-man away from other platforms but it seems like they were the only ones willing to make a game for it after Activision licenese expired. Go figure


Activision didn’t think anyone could sell spider-man games better then they could. Microsoft wanted to focus on original IP at the time.

Quotes from Jay Ong (Executive VP & Head of Marvel Games) & Ted Price (Founder & CEO of Insomniac Games).

Marvel Games reaching out to Xbox & PlayStation & why Microsoft passed over a Marvel deal

What he needed was a publishing partner who hadn't adopted the "crappy licensed games" mentality. He needed a company with an eye for long-term investments, one with a vested interest that would benefit from building a franchise. That partner would need to have a deep pool of talent, commitment to quality, and inexhaustibly deep pockets. There were three companies that fit that description. One of them, Nintendo, mostly developed games based on its own intellectual properties.

Being from console first-party in my past, I pinged both sides, both Xbox and PlayStation, and said, "We don't have any big console deals with anyone right now. What would you like to do?" Microsoft's strategy was to focus on their own IP. They passed.

I sat down with these two execs from PlayStation third-party, Adam Boyes and John Drake, in August 2014, in a conference room in Burbank. I said, "We have a dream that this is possible, that we could beat Arkham and have one game at least and maybe multiple games that could drive adoption of your platform."

PlayStation, Marvel Games & Insomniac - Marvel's Spider-Man and a worthy rival to Arkham

Sony turned the project over to Insomniac Games,*18 an independent studio at the time, but one of Sony's most important partners. Insomniac had a long list of hits that were published under the Sony label—Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, Resistance: Fall of Man, and most recently Sunset Overdrive.*19

Insomniac was an obvious choice for the project. As a studio, Insomniac had an impeccable record as both a designer of hit games and a reliable partner for Sony. Another plus, one of the studio's most recent games, Sunset Overdrive, incorporated a fast-paced, highly acrobatic style of combat that was equal parts parkour, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and Call of Duty, a very Spider-Man style of fighting that involved swinging and grinding over cities while facing multiple enemies.

Insomniac's ability to create games based on already existing intellectual property may have caused some concern. Historically, the studio created IP rather than building off of other companies' ideas. In truth, other companies adapted Insomniac's IP.*20
When we heard of the opportunity, thanks to Connie [Sony Interactive Entertainment vice president of product development Connie Booth] at Sony, it was a real surprise for me because up until that point we had been working on our own IP and hadn't really contemplated working on existing franchises.

Sony's participation in this project would be anything but passive. Including marketing, the budget for franchise-building games like Marvel's Spider-Man routinely exceeded $100 million. With so much money and prestige on the line, Sony Interactive Entertainment assigned senior director Grady Hunt and PS4 designer Mark Cerny to consult on the project. Both men had worked as Sony consultants with Insomniac on early projects as well.

The three-way collaboration between Insomniac, Marvel, and Sony was a success. Having partnered with Insomniac many times throughout the PlayStation and PS2 eras, Sony executives had confidence in the studio's technical and game design savvy. For their part, studio founder Ted Price and his fellow "Insomniacs" understood how to work with Sony as well. Having worked in different industries serving a mostly similar audience, Price's Insomniacs had a natural affinity with their Marvel counterparts as well.

Very early on, we knew that there was a great chemistry between us and our compatriots at Marvel. A lot of that came from being able to learn more about the Marvel universe from those who were really experts in it…guys like Bill Rosemann [executive creative director, Marvel Games]. At the same time, the Marvel team was fantastic in trusting us to come up with a new story…to come up with a new take on Peter Parker, and to explore the mechanics of what Spider-Man could be in a modern game.

Along with its proven track record, Insomniac brought technical expertise to the project. Like so many games of the PS3/Xbox 360 era, Arkham Asylum was built using Unreal Engine 3, a versatile and powerful engine created by Epic. Insomniac used its proprietary Insomniac Engine.

The Insomniac Engine enabled us to create a very large city. The New York we created for Marvel's Spider-Man was ten times the size of the city we created for Sunset Overdrive and more detailed. More importantly, in Spider-Man you can go anywhere because you're Spider-Man. From the very beginning, we had to figure out how to make that work and make the views from the tallest buildings feel believable when we have limited horsepower to use. The goal is to be clever about how you display things and keep the game in frame while giving players a lot of freedom to do whatever they feel like at any time. Spider-Man is kind of the ultimate expression of that.

Marvel's Spider-Man was indeed a worthy rival for the Arkham games. Breaking Spider-Man into the top tier of games wasn't only a question of money and technology; it was a question of finding a team with a grand vision. Insomniac wanted to create an iconic game for an iconic superhero. Marvel's active participation ensured a new level of authenticity. Wanting to create a PlayStation-exclusive franchise, Sony not only lent Marvel's Spider-Man a gigantic marketing budget, the console giant also offered technical support from start to finish.

When it came to Spider-Man, Activision wasn't prepared to compete against games like Batman: Arkham Asylum. Sony was. To date, the Arkham games and Marvel's Spider-Man are unrivaled among superhero games for sales, with a steep drop to the next tier down. In 2020, as Sony prepared to release PlayStation 5, the exclusive game headlining that release was Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales.

Marvel's Spider-Man was the first time that Marvel proper realized that games as a medium could drive the brand…could drive "brand affinity," as we call it.

 

[levitate]

Good. shyt woulda been trash.

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

Good. shyt woulda been trash.

The irony is Insomniac just got done making Sunset Overdrive for them so they could have easily acquired Insomniac at the time with the Spider-man license

 

[The Mad Titan]

I dont see the problem, spiderman as people love it now is because of insomniac not sony.

 

[Diondon]

The vision
Xbots screamimg why they don't go no good Marvel games

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

I dont see the problem, spiderman as people love it now is because of insomniac not sony.

Sony's participation in this project would be anything but passive. Including marketing, the budget for franchise-building games like Marvel's Spider-Man routinely exceeded $100 million. With so much money and prestige on the line, Sony Interactive Entertainment assigned senior director Grady Hunt and PS4 designer Mark Cerny to consult on the project. Both men had worked as Sony consultants with Insomniac on early projects as well.

The three-way collaboration between Insomniac, Marvel, and Sony was a success. Having partnered with Insomniac many times throughout the PlayStation and PS2 eras, Sony executives had confidence in the studio's technical and game design savvy. For their part, studio founder Ted Price and his fellow "Insomniacs" understood how to work with Sony as well. Having worked in different industries serving a mostly similar audience, Price's Insomniacs had a natural affinity with their Marvel counterparts as well.

Breaking Spider-Man into the top tier of games wasn't only a question of money and technology; it was a question of finding a team with a grand vision. Insomniac wanted to create an iconic game for an iconic superhero. Marvel's active participation ensured a new level of authenticity. Wanting to create a PlayStation-exclusive franchise, Sony not only lent Marvel's Spider-Man a gigantic marketing budget, the console giant also offered technical support from start to finish.

Trying to undermine Sony’s contribution to this is desperate.

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

The vision
Xbots screamimg why they don;t go no good Marvel games

Just speaks to phil Spencer and microsofts piss poor management. They can create all these other things but still can’t see the vision in making good games

Look what they did when they had Insomniac and look what Sony is doing. Microsoft just isn’t there yet.

 

[Black Mamba]

So where’s that IP they was focusing on instead of Spidey at?

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

So where’s that IP they was focusing on instead of Spidey at?

Ever heard of Scalebound?

 

[Black Mamba]

Ever heard of Scalebound?

Just googled it
And canceled?

 

[Khalil's_Black_Excellence]

Trying to undermine Sony’s contribution to this is desperate.

Just speaks to phil Spencer and microsofts piss poor management. They can create all these other things but still can’t see the vision in making good games

Look what they did when they had Insomniac and look what Sony is doing. Microsoft just isn’t there yet.

Ever heard of Scalebound?

Surely the Stan Titan won't give M$ their credit for Scalebound's abortion in similar fashion to not giving Sony credit for Spider-Man's success.

 

[Killer Instinct]

Of course they did. It's Microsoft. They were all in on The Gunk, though. They can not get out of their own way.

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

Microsoft passes on developing a spider-man game, sony takes the offer…

5 years later: “see, this is why microsoft had to buy Bethesda and Activision!”

 

[ORDER_66]

I dont see the problem, spiderman as people love it now is because of insomniac not sony.

dude did you not see that E3 reaction?!!?

 

[FromStLouis]

June 12th can't get here quick enough.