Within its first few days, “Marvel’s Wolverine” has reportedly sold through 1.9 million copies with 1 million of that in pre-launch digital pre-orders – generating $130 million in revenue according to third-party analytics firm Alinea Analytics (via Rhys Elliot)
Of these revenues, reportedly 22.9% were physical. These estimates don’t include unsold retail copies, which publishers often report in their sold-in numbers. It is already reportedly the top-performing new PlayStation Studios game on PS5 this year.
To put those numbers in perspective, the title has apparently already passed lifetime PS5 copies sold and revenues for “Death Stranding 2” (1.8 million copies, $129 million), “Marathon” (1.8 million copies, $60 million), “MLB The Show” (1.5 million copies, $99 million), “Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls” (740,000 copies, $49 million), and “Saros” (510,000, $40 million).
The top market was the U.S. which accounted for 53% of the player base, followed by the UK (7%), France (5%), and Canada (4%). First-party numbers from Sony PlayStation have not been revealed.
Armed with an apparent $305 million budget though, the title will need to sell well in the months and years to come to be profitable for the developer.
The sales numbers arrive as developer Insomniac Games has already sent out an update that reduces the opacity of the ‘blue gas’ scent trail elements that appear in select sequences and have been a major point of contention in places online.
They added a posting about the update that they are “exploring toggleable options for a future update”. The scent trails, nicknamed ‘fart gas’ online, have become a point of contention.
As more people play the game, parts of social media have become a battlefield, with content creators on TikTok, X, and YouTube facing significant backlash for exaggerating or outright fabricating issues to stir outrage, from debunked AI slop signage to selective clips suggesting the game ‘plays itself’.
Others are just getting fed up with the gaming discourse itself, which is being heavily impacted not just by long-running culture wars and console wars, but by increasing distrust due to ‘financially incentivised online mauling ‘, as one user on the Reddit forum for the game explains.
These include social media monetisation models where algorithms make ragebait profitable, to online prediction markets (considered gambling by many governments) where you can effectively bet against the success of a title in various ways (eg. Metacritic score, revenue, etc.).
Interestingly, the game has racked up a 4.8/5 on Sony’s own PlayStation Store from over 34,000 reviews – a score that can only be made by those who’ve actually purchased the game.
