Spider-Man is not a Sony brand that has marketable products Sony can make money on outside of games and movies. They're custodians, not owners. OP is talking more about toys, books, clothing anything that can be made on the back of an IP like how Nintendo has done with Mario.
They can, they just won't be Mario, Pokemon or Minecraft tier and probably never would be in most cases as that's unrealistic for 99% of I.Ps, like even GTA doesn't compare to them, despite being in the same tier as a franchise, as it's just not universally appealing to all ages for merch sales.
Yes, the 3 I was talking about in the comment you replied to.
not everything has to be as big as mario, pokemon or minecraft in order to be successful. there are many other IPs on that list that have been active for 2 or 3 decades and are still making money, both through game sales and merchandise.
Exactly, that what I said in my post, read my post you replied to.
Neither was mine, God of War, TLoU, Bloodborne, Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank and more Sony I.Ps all have a combination of comics, board games, card games, either released or planned movies or TV shows for, it's not unique, but none would ever be on the tier of those 3, using them as comparisons, is just not realistic, they aren't even close to what's achieveable to damn near every I.P.
i read your post, to me it sounds like you're saying just because they can't be big as mario, pokemon or minecraft, there's not much of a point in trying to maintain the relevancy of some of their old IPs. that part doesn't make sense. they've had many big series during the PS1 or PS2 days that have been dropped. yeah maybe if they had kept them alive they wouldn't have been as big as those 3 but i think it's still smart for a company to keep their IPs somewhat relevant instead of just fully dropping them and moving on.
well not too few. nintendo, activision, bandai namco, square enix, capcom, blizzard, rockstar, sega, microsoft, ubisoft and even level-5 all have franchises in that list, considering how big sony is it's easy to notice their lack of presence in there (other than gran turismo which is right at the bottom).
Doesn't help Sony Pictures are ass at managing the projects, pretty much all got stuck in development hell, as for the quality, there's not exactly been a high bar set by others, so not really relevant if there's was also mediocre (pretty generous to R&C, that was saved thanks to the game filling in the blanks).
If I was trying to say that, why would I ask if people where serious with the comparisons?
Although this is true to some extend, I think the share of merchandise revenue that adults (even without kids) bring in for brands like Disney / Marvel / Harry Potter / Star Wars / Game of Thrones is still huge. Of course, most if not all of those adults may have been young when they got to know most of those brands, but nostalgia works wonders there. Sony has been around long enough to have built some of that nostalgia too. They did for the brand, but not so much for iconic characters that could be turned into merchandise easily.
Who is making mario toys?
Make some bloater plushies the kids will love it.
