The reveal of Spider-Man as a PlayStation-exclusive character for Marvel’s Avengers sparked a wildfire of debate around third-party exclusives, not to mention exacerbating the console wars, but the plain and simple fact is it’s business. Platforms are built on exclusives, and both Sony and Microsoft have both participated in a wealth of third-party exclusive deals in the past. Expect that trend to continue, as a new rumor from a well-known games journalist says Sony is gearing up to reveal plenty of additional third-party exclusive content next year.
Kinda Funny’s Imran Khan (formerly Game Informer) responded to a ResetEra thread about the Spider-Man exclusivity, saying “If you guys are mad about this, I suggest saving some energy, because the next year will be a marathon of getting upset.” Whether Khan has specific knowledge regarding other exclusivity deals or is just making conjecture based on expected marketing plans for next-gen is unknown, but his reply indicates that he thinks Sony “threw a bunch of money” to make Spider-Man exclusive in one of the biggest cross-generation games with a free upgrade to next-gen as a way to lock people into the PlayStation side of that ecosystem.
However, it does seem that Khan has at least some inside knowledge. In a follow-up reply asking about Microsoft’s approach to exclusives, he said “I do not know exactly what Microsoft is doing. I know Sony is doing this a lot,” putting specific emphasis on “a lot.” So according to Khan’s knowledge, Sony’s got a lot of third-party deals in the works for a variety of PlayStation-exclusive content. In fact, just a day after the Spider-Man announcement, it was additionally revealed that Sony would be getting a set of timed-exclusive cosmetics for each new character that Marvel’s Avengers added, along with bonus PS Plus bundles for subscribers. That seems to be the end of it for Marvel’s Avengers though. Crystal Dynamics confirmed there are no other console exclusive characters.
As we head into next-gen, both Sony and Microsoft are employing different strategies and goals for the future, but both do have some level of exclusivity, including Microsoft snapping up a bunch of studios like Obsidian and Double Fine. Sony’s focus on a significant leap forward for next-gen and moving people onto the PS5 faster than before does imply they’ll be utilizing strategies such as this to try to convince people that PlayStation is the place to play games, from first-party exclusives to third-party releases with exclusive content. Khan’s comments make sense from a simple business and marketing standpoint as the PS5 nears releases and players need to start deciding when they’ll upgrade and which console they’ll be upgrading to. Exclusives like Spider-Man are going to be leveraged as main ways to highlight the PS5 specifically, and it looks like there’s “a lot” more to come down the line.
