Spider-Man PlayStation Exclusivity Explained: Who Owns The Rights?

The Spider-Man property is perhaps one of Marvel’s most contested characters when it comes to exclusivity rights. From Sony and Marvel’s long-running feud to the strange rights Activision had for a time, it’s unclear exactly who owns Spider-Man. This is further complicated by Marvel’s Spider-Man launching exclusively for PS4 back in 2018. With the recent announcement of Spider-Man’s introduction to Marvel’s Avengers as an exclusive character on PlayStation, many began to question exactly who has the video game rights to the beloved wall crawler.

It’s likely many assume that Spider-Man, including his games, are owned exclusively by Sony. Given that the studio acquired Insomniac in 2019, it would make sense if Sony had all the video game rights. However, this wouldn’t be accurate. Sony only possesses the movie rights for the character, even if Spidey makes an appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Given that there has been no official mention of Spider-Man’s video game rights, exclusivity becomes difficult to discern.

Initially, Activision was the only known studio who held exclusive video games right to the Spider-Man property. Between 2000 to 2014, Activision pushed out games such as Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Ultimate Spider-Man, and many more. However, since the company does not own their own game platform, the titles could be launched across almost all major game consoles at the time including PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo. Once their license expired in 2014, Spider-Man technically didn’t belong to one particular studio anymore.

Sony Doesn’t Own Spider-Man’s Video Game Rights, Marvel Does

Jumping several years ahead to E3 2016, Marvel’s Spider-Man was officially announced. During a speech given by Marvel Game head Jay Ong, the relationship between Sony, Insomniac, and Marvel is stated as simply being a partnership. The three major corporations were banding together to produce an all new Spider-Man game. If Sony was the sole owner of the Spider-Man game rights, it would be unlikely that the character would be appearing in anything that doesn’t run on PlayStation. This explains why Spider-Man has made appearances in other Marvel games such as Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order and LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2. Ultimately, it seems that Marvel is the one deciding what games Spider-Man can be featured in.

This brings into question why Marvel’s Spider-Man was a PS4 exclusive when Sony isn’t the exclusive owner of the character’s video game rights. According to IGN, Sony Vice President of Product Development Connie Booth met with Insomniac to discuss the development of a Marvel game. It’s likely Sony spoke to Marvel prior to this conversation in order to gain exclusivity rights for this one title alone. However, Sony never went in to speak about a Spider-Man game specifically. Insomniac was allowed to pick any Marvel superhero to work with and ultimately decided that Spider-Man was their best bet. Sony was never given the exclusive rights to produce a Spider-Man game. They were given the ability to make an exclusive title for the PlayStation platform and Insomniac just so happened to go with Spider-Man. This led to Marvel’s Spider-Man being a PlayStation 5 exclusive when it launched in 2018.

Although Sony now owns Insomniac Games, neither company has any exclusive game rights to the Spider-Man character, nor did Sony ever have said rights to begin with. Presumably, Marvel has owned the video game rights to the superhero this entire time. A temporary partnership between Sony and Marvel is what granted Sony the ability to launch Marvel’s Spider-Man as an exclusive on their own platforms. It’s likely a similar deal was orchestrated to allow Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales to launch as a PS5 exclusive. At the end of the day, it seems Marvel is the sole proprietor of the Spider-Man video game rights.

Source: IGN

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