Marvel's Spider-Man Is Now The Best Selling Superhero Game Ever

In my youth, I remember superhero games being a bit of a gamble. You could end up with a Superman game where he dies to gunshots, or a terrible sidescrolling brawler based on Batman Forever, or maybe a surprisingly decent Capcom-developed X-Men game. Nowadays, the bar has raised a bit, thanks to games like Rocksteady's Arkham series, which were by far the most successful superhero games in terms of sales. At least, until now.

Just ahead of San Diego Comic-Con's superhero panels today, NPD analyst Mat Piscatella shared data of the best-selling superhero games in the United States. While we have long-known that Marvel's Spider-Man, the PS4-exclusive collaboration between Marvel Games and Sony and developed by Insomniac, is one of the fastest-selling superhero titles ever, it is also now the best-selling one. Peter Parker has officially leapfrogged over his nearest competitor, Batman's Arkham City.

Arkham City, the follow-up to the critically successful Arkham Asylum, was released in 2011 on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. The sequel took Batman into an open world and let Batman fly around a condemned prisoner island beating up thugs and solving mysteries.

Sony has been particularly proud of Spider-Man's critical and sales performance in the year since its release on PlayStation 4. Sony has even used Spider-Man as their specific example of how game performance will improve on the next PlayStation console.