There was a pretty big thing that took the gaming community by storm when it was revealed that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was on indefinite hold for the Xbox One.
Activision released a very vague and uninformative press release to Gaming Bolt about the issue, but no one was better informed about what was really going on with the game or why it was being held up like a poncho-wearing border-crosser coming over the fence into Texas.
Well, we still don't have a clear-cut explanation, but as reported by Eurogamer and confirmed by Larry “Major 'Flip Switcher' Nelson” Hryb, The Amazing Spider-Man 2: The Game is currently available right now for the Xbox One... just not on a retail shelf near you.
Originally, the game was recently made available digitally on the Xbox One, as you can see on the official Xbox website. You could legitimately (and still can) purchase The Amazing Spider-Man 2 from the Xbox Live marketplace. However, it was never announced or made public. This led a ton of gamers to flood forums, news sites and social media, asking the powers that be why the game was available and if it was legit. Turns out, it was legit.
The public response prompted Major Nelson to make a quick post on his blog to ensure gamers that it wasn't a hoax or some other kind of product flub.
Of course, this still left gamers wondering exactly what was going on and why all the habberdashery surrounding the release of Amazing Spider-Man 2 on the Xbox One?
Some gamers suspected that there was a problem with the disc-pressing for the XB1 version of the game. It's all speculation, but the hypothesis is that if there was a problem with the physical copies that delayed the release of the game, then it would mean that the digital copy would also have to be delayed. But there's a problem: Microsoft's parity clause.
If The Amazing Spider-Man 2's physical release was accompanied by a digital delay then the game would no longer have launch parity on the Xbox One. It would effectively be the tardy game to school, slow and useless like a sloth brought in to replace Gary the technician in the IT department. But in the case of the technician it wouldn't really matter... no one liked Gary, anyway.
The real issue is that Activision couldn't say anything or delay the digital copy for another big problem: retail-parity. Even though digital sales are nothing to scoff at, the retail game is still pretty important to both publishers and console manufacturers. Activision admitting that the physical copies of the game being delayed while the digital copies are available could effectively cannibalize the much delayed retail outing for the Xbox One, and there's no retailer who would stand about and think that being screwed over with digital availability over a retail release is an okay thing. Heck, remember what happened to the Sega Saturn when the retailers thought that they were being played over? Exactly.
Of course, there's no way to know for sure unless Activision decides to properly spill the beans about what happened. But, it's probably in their best interest to let this slide under the table like an intern in the Oval Office.
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