An argument I often see leveraged against the Switch is that third party games "don't sell on it", and that because many games sell better on PS4, that means their Switch sales are bad and there's no reason to keep bringing them over.

This reasoning, however, doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. Let's cast our memories back to the Wii. 5 Call of Duty games were ported to the Wii from 2006 to 2011. With the exception of COD3, these all sold less than 2 million, yet they kept coming, year after year. If they weren't profitable, Activision would've called it quits after 1 or 2. Sure, sales were a fraction of the PS3 and 360 versions, but that didn't matter; they obviously did well enough to earn money.

Generally speaking, it's not all that expensive to port a game that already exists. The game itself may need to sell millions in total to turn a profit, but a port might only need to sell, say, 500k to recoup the costs of conversion.

Take Skyrim on Switch; it's well on its way to cruise comfortably passed the million mark, (if it hasn't already) and while it probably won't sell as much as the PS4 version, it doesn't need to; as a port, it could likely do 800k lifetime and still turn a profit for Bethesda, and at the end of the day that's what matters, not whether it's the best selling version, but whether it makes money.

Now, obviously there are other factors, like how difficult a specific game would be to port. But the arguments that "oh it sold less on Switch so it wasn't successful" or "it wouldn't sell as much as the PS4 version so why bother" are fundamentally flawed and illogical.

Selling less than on another platform obviously turn it in less successful, but I rarely see it used as argument. It is mostly it sold so low that the port was meaningless, and that isn't selling a little less than PS4 or X1 but considerably less.

And devs aren't dumb. So we pretty much know also that if a port can be made and turn profit they will more likely do than not. So this should also debunk any theory of conspiracy that a port isn't on Switch because devs are dumb or hate Nintendo.

How much it sells versus other platforms ultimately doesn't matter as long as it's profitable. If a game sells 5 million on PS4 and 1 million on Switch, but the Switch port makes money, then it is successful.

And devs/publishers are human, they make mistakes sometimes. Surely you're not suggesting video game developers have never made a bad decision?

but is it really fair to expect a game to sell 5 millions units on switch and 5 millions units on PS4 when there is 18 million switchs out there, and 80 million PS4 ?

I'd be surprised if the developers even had the choice of which platforms they wanted to release the game for; I'm pretty sure it's the publisher who makes that decision, unless the developers own the IP and got a concession from the publisher.

That's a good point actually, I didn't think of that. Post amended.

Call of Duty on the Wii is not at all a good example. COD wasn't pumping out Billions of Dollars until after MW2 and Black Ops, so any profits Activision did gain from that was good because they didn't see the mountain of cash they were gonna get from milking COD on the Ps3/Xbox. Since COD truly erupted around 2009-2010 to its levels that it is now, plus its two year development cycle, the last Black Ops and MW3 was already in their way, and would have been counterproductive to cancel. Plus it would be a good time for Activision to test the waters of a then popular COD in a big fanbase.

Also Skyrim was in every other system aside from my printer, porting a 7th gen title to newer gen would be pennies compared to its development and porting costs. The real testament to your statement would be if Bethesda decides to continue supporting the Switch if deem Wolfenstein II to be profitable. Wolfenstein II is a new game, and has no 7th gen counterpart. Meaning, its a clean slate.

Agree. But people are too busy with their console war and prefer not to think.

The third party games on Nintendo Switch will always have the disadvantage of the release date and price compared to other versions, but as long as the game is not broken, I believe that most have a chance to make a profit.

"Milking COD on PS3/360" and making some extra cash from Wii ports are not mutually exclusive. You can have both, and they did. If COD on Wii was not making money, they would not have brought over 5 of them over 5 years. If World at War didn't earn its keep, it was easily early enough to pull the plug on Black Ops and MW3.

There is almost no scenario where your above statement even comes remotely valid, very few if any uses it as argument.

AAA 3rd party games that are on the PS4 and Switch

-  Extremely small, 3rd party developers are not bringing AAA games to the Switch at a fast enough pace (or even at all) where this argument would even make sense.  You have DOOM, Wolfenstein and Skyrim (a game from 2011).  On Resetera, Aquamarine and ZX both said that sales of AAA games on the switch are OK but not great, I'm taking they are talking about the above titles.  3 games is not enough to make a grand statement like that, the sample size is too small.   The developer and publisher talk is invalid because we don't know the true cost of anything, you're using all speculation.

Indie games on PS4 and Switch

- There are many but sales between the two are never argued because Switch sales of indie games are high and there is no real development difference between consoles.

Japanese games

-  See Attack on Titan 2.  Small sample size but volume sales on PS4 are not that great either for the majority of them so the argument above doesn't make sense because I'm sure that Japanese developers keep to tight budgets and the PS4 versions are taking long enough for them to break even (if they get to break even at all).