Sony has announced its latest Spider-Man release is the fastest-selling video game made by PlayStation.
Spider-Man 2 sold more than 2.5 million physical and digital copies in its first 24 hours, it said in a blog post. The game, developed by PlayStation-owned Insomniac Games, has won rave reviews since it was released on Friday for the PS5.
But it has faced some criticism over its length, with its main story taking around 15 hours to complete. That extends to roughly 40 hours including side-content, a fairly typical length for video games, although some releases this year like Baldur's Gate 3 can potentially be played for hundreds of hours.
Spider-Man 2 has been praised for its representation of Puerto Rican culture, but there has been criticism after its flag was confused with that of Cuba in the main character's house.
The developers have pledged to fix the mistake. Despite Spider-Man 2's title, it is actually the third game in the series, following releases in 2018 and 2020.
Like the previous games the latest version takes place in a virtual New York City, but for the first time, gamers can play as either Peter Parker or Miles Morales – both alter-egos of the popular superhero.
“Insomniac Games holds itself to incredibly high standards when it comes to delivering engaging and innovative gameplay experiences,” said PlayStation's head of business operations Eric Lempel.
“I want to say thank you to the fans – we truly hope you are enjoying your time playing as Peter and Miles in this amazing adventure.”
Big games
Spider-Man 2 was one of a series of high profile games launched last week, including new titles from gaming icons Mario and Sonic. Super Mario Bros Wonder and Sonic Superstars drew headlines after the gaming rivals released games in the same week for the first time for more than 30 years.
Spider-Man 2 outperformed both in boxed sales to be the biggest physical video-game launch in the UK last week. It is now one of the highest-rated PlayStation 5 titles on gaming-aggregator Metacritic.
Despite being the biggest physical launch of the year on PS5, the game has not yet reached the dizzying heights of the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which sold more than 10 million copies in just three days.
That game, released by Nintendo in May, remains the biggest physical video game launch in the UK in 2023. The physical sales of Spider-Man 2 only make up part of the total 2.5 million copies sold – which Christopher Dring, head of gaming news site GamesIndustry.biz, said would have mainly been downloads.
“The majority of games sold these days are digitally downloaded,” he said.
“The market was heading in this direction before the pandemic hit – in 2019 in the UK, around half of games were sold digitally while half were sold in physical stores, but since 2020, that number has jumped and over 70% of games are downloaded.
“There are still millions of boxed games sold every year, and you can't download a console or a controller. But it is now a much, much, much smaller part of the market.”
— CutC by bbc.com
