Wolverine sold 2.4 million and Sony's own chart makes it look rough next to Spider-Man 2

Sony finally put a number on Marvel's Wolverine in its latest earnings report and it's 2.4 million units. Sounds fine on paper until you see what it's sitting next to in that same report.

Spider-Man 2, from the same studio, moved 2.5 million in a single day. Ghost of Yotei beat Wolverine's total in a matter of days. So a full launch window of Wolverine got outrun by one day of Spidey. Ouch.

the calendar did it no favors

Look at what Wolverine launched into. Control Resonant, Onimusha, Fire Emblem, Modern Warfare 4, plus every live service game on earth fighting for the same wallet. And the whole industry is basically holding its breath until November 19. Nobody's spending big on a new game in October when GTA 6 is sitting right there on the horizon.

The reviews didn't help either. Lukewarm scores and a lot of negative chatter online is a bad combo when people are already picky about where their money goes.

the GTA 6 shadow is real

This is the part that interests me. For the last two months every publisher has been trying to squeeze their launch in before GTA 6 eats the entire conversation. Some of them are clearly getting squeezed anyway. If a first party Marvel game from Insomniac can get flattened in that window, imagine what it's doing to smaller stuff.

Black Friday discounts will move some units, and the holidays usually give a bump. Sony also didn't say what the game cost to make, which is never a great sign. Meanwhile the rest of the quarter was solid: PS5 closing on 100 million, PS6 work ramping up, $3.95 billion across the divisions.

I'm not here to dunk on Wolverine, I just think the timing story is the interesting one. Everything launching this fall is essentially a pre-GTA 6 sacrifice.

Do you think any game launching this close to November 19 had a real shot, or was everyone just hoping to get out of the way in time?

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Source: GameSpot · Curated content.