Sony says 'Spider-Man 2' videogame sales set record

SAN FRANCISCO, United States — "Marvel's Spider-Man 2" videogame was snapped up so fast that it set a record for PlayStation Studios, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) said Monday.

The title, developed in collaboration with Insomniac Games, became the fastest selling PlayStation Studios game in the 24 hours after its release on Friday, with more than 2.5 million copies bought, according to SIE.

"I want to say thank you to the fans," SIE global marketing vice president Eric Lempel said in a release.

"With an epic storyline, two playable superheroes, a visually-stunning Marvel's New York, and so much more, this is a game you can get lost in for hours."

"Spider-Man" emerged as a superhero in the Marvel comics of the early 1960s and first appeared in video games in the 1990s, but without major success.

Blockbuster superhero movies in the 2000s led to the character headlining a series of games developed from 2018 by Insomniac for Sony, which bought the studio the following year.

Sony spent heavily developing "Marvel's Spider-Man 2", its graphics pushing the PlayStation 5's technical capacities to the max to battle Kraven the Hunter and other villains.

"Spider-Man" can be played in the "skin" of the original Peter Parker or in the guise of the Hispanic-African-American teenager Miles Morales created in 2011.

"We are thrilled with how our characters are represented and the powerful, meaningful, new stories that emerge from their depictions in game," Marvel Games head Jay Ong said in a release.