PlayStation 4: Devs Explain Why Spidey is an Exclusive

On August 3rd, Crystal Dynamics announced Marvel’s Avengers will welcome Spiderman. They also announced that the character will be exclusive to PlayStation 4. This started an angry debate in the non-Sony community. Nonetheless, a reaction of this sort meets due expectations for a character as popular as Spidey. Is it ever okay to shut out content from gamers by making it platform-specific?

The online debate even made Spiderman trend on Twitter. Because of Sony’s close relationship with the Spiderman franchise, it is an easy guess why this phenomenon is occurring. Sony is the owner of Spiderman’s movie rights. This gives Sony the edge where it can eventually push Marvel to agree on releasing the character only on PlayStation.

Here is what the official blog post by Jeff Adams, Associate Art Director, Crystal Dynamics said.

“It’s never been a better time to be a spider-fan!  The team at Crystal Dynamics, along with our partners, are overjoyed that we get to be a part of this hero’s gaming journey.  We can’t wait for you to add Spider-Man to your Marvel’s Avengers roster in early 2021, and as we’ve promised before, he will be available at no additional cost to owners of the base game, exclusively on PlayStation.”

Read more– Cyberpunk 2077: Weapon Manufacturers And Ocean Content News

Devs response to PlayStation 4 exclusivity decision

In an interview yesterday with Newsweek, Crystal Dynamics head, Scot Amos answered a few questions. Furthermore, he reportedly said cross-play or cross-progression on platforms is not going to be an issue in the future.

“We wanted this to be something specific because of the unique relationship,” he says, referring to the partnership between Sony and Marvel, regarding Spiderman. In response to the cross-play questions, he assures there will be no issue.

“PS4 to PS5 will work and Xbox to Xbox Series X will work so cross-gen works. Looking at cross-play as a broader ecosystem is something we want to explore absolutely for the future.”

In response to the heavy criticism that the exclusivity announcement has created, Scot goes back to the relationship Sony and Marvel share.

“…as you guys know with Sony’s [movie rights] ownership there and Marvel with Sony saying, ‘hey, this is something we can do, this is something we can do on this platform’ and as creators, we have this opportunity that we can make something unique and fun and awesome.” 

It does seem Sony has yanked out the character from other platforms and while that doesn’t feel alright there’s only so much you can do. Maybe shift to PlayStation?

Marvel’s Avengers is up for release on September 4 on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Google Stadia.

Source– newsweek