Sony has confirmed that Marvel’s Wolverine has sold 2.4 million copies in its first 50 days, against a reported development cost of roughly $300 million.
Insomniac’s PS5 exclusive launched September 15 at $69.99. The 2.4 million figure comes from Sony’s latest financial update and is the first time the company has confirmed the game’s sales. Push Square reports the budget at about $300 million, including a licensing fee to Disney. Revista Mercado, citing Insomniac documents leaked in 2023, puts it at $305 million and reports that the studio projected about $390 million in revenue, $85 million in profit and 10 million copies sold.
The arithmetic does not close. At the $69.99 list price, 2.4 million copies comes to about $168 million. That assumes every buyer paid full price, with no discounts, taxes or retailer margin on the disc editions. The total still sits about $132 million below the reported budget. Recouping $300 million at list price takes about 4.3 million copies, and the budget figure does not include marketing.
Insomniac’s own Spider-Man games set the comparison. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 sold 5 million copies in 11 days and reportedly cost $315 million. Wolverine has sold less than half that number in more than four times the time. Ghost of Yotei reached 3.3 million sales in its first month, and Insomniac’s Spider-Man series has sold around 60 million units in total.
The launch was strong, then faded. Wolverine was the top-selling game of September in the US by full-game dollar sales and the best launch month for a Sony game since Helldivers 2. By October it had fallen to 14th in the US PlayStation Store charts and sat outside Europe’s top 20. Push Square calls the 2.4 million figure a “fairly slow start for a game of this scope and budget.”
Critics scored it lower than any Spider-Man game. Metacritic has it at 77 to 78, the lowest for an Insomniac original since 2016’s Song of the Deep, against 87 for Marvel’s Spider-Man, 85 for Miles Morales and 90 for Spider-Man 2. Notebookcheck summarized the complaints as “repetitive action, restrictive linear environments and an underwhelming story.”
Video game commentator Yorch Torch Games put it this way: “This is what happens when you turn Wolverine into a woke walking simulator.”
Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine sat in the same budget class, and a Wolverine sequel would need to carry the same scale of cost. Will Sony put another $300 million into an Insomniac Marvel game after this?
Not surprised that this game is a failure.