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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Third party Switch ports don't necessarily need to sell as much as PS4 to be successful

curl-6 on 01 July 2018
Train wreck said:
curl-6 said:

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.

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.  

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).

I never said the argument itself was logical or reasonable, in fact my point was that it wasn't. It's simply a throwaway statement that tends to crop up whenever the topic of Switch ports emerges, there always seems to be at least someone who pulls the old "they shouldn't bother cos they don't sell" card.



Train wreck on 01 July 2018
curl-6 said:
Train wreck said:

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.  

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).

I never said the argument itself was logical or reasonable, in fact my point was that it wasn't. It's simply a throwaway statement that tends to crop up whenever the topic of Switch ports emerges, there always seems to be at least someone who pulls the old "they shouldn't bother cos they don't sell" card.

Who says that?  Not to say you are calling attention to something at is basically non existent but that's what it looks like.



Xxain on 01 July 2018

Publishers never expect a port to outsell the original. They are used to:

- Second attempt to make back development cost
- More profit off an already popular game
- Gauge interest in a new audience.



curl-6 on 01 July 2018
Train wreck said:
curl-6 said:

I never said the argument itself was logical or reasonable, in fact my point was that it wasn't. It's simply a throwaway statement that tends to crop up whenever the topic of Switch ports emerges, there always seems to be at least someone who pulls the old "they shouldn't bother cos they don't sell" card.

Who says that?  Not to say you are calling attention to something at is basically non existent but that's what it looks like.

"Third party games don't sell on Nintendo" is in my experience a pretty common phrase wheeled out in justification when a game skips over the Switch. 



Jranation on 01 July 2018

To me it is successful if the company keeps supporting the console with releasing their games. And that is what we have seen a lot on the Switch



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killeryoshis on 01 July 2018

Nintendo with strong 3rd party support is OP. No one can compete with that. That's why Nintendo has to nerf themselves to prevent easy slaughtering. So people downplay 3rd party sales no that does not happen. They are afraid



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Mr Puggsly on 02 July 2018

Right... It still needa to sell enough to justify the port work.

I imagine port work between PS4 and X1 is relatively easy given the similar specs. But its evident Switch ports can require special attention, optimization, etc.

So it depends on the game, how demanding it is on hardware, etc. Switch gets tons of indie and liw spec games for a reason, easy to port.



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GoOnKid on 02 July 2018
DonFerrari said:

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.

Have you read the story behind the port of the Crash N Sane Trilogy on Switch? It was just one single developer testing out the first level on the Switch hardware out of curiosity. He saw that it worked and it took him very little effort. Then he showed that to his superiors and the port was greenlighted. So what can we learn from this?

We see how Activisions' management never considered this port in the first place. The management never even thought about checking if it was possible at all. They straight up ignored a new rising system which had a strong entry into the market and hosts an audience which is known to enjoy platformers. So how do you call a decision like that? Exactly, it's dumb.



curl-6 on 02 July 2018
Mr Puggsly said:
Right... It still needa to sell enough to justify the port work.

I imagine port work between PS4 and X1 is relatively easy given the similar specs. But its evident Switch ports can require special attention, optimization, etc.

So it depends on the game, how demanding it is on hardware, etc. Switch gets tons of indie and liw spec games for a reason, easy to port.

True, it does vary on a game by game basis; a port of, say, Cyberpunk 2077 is out of the question for obvious reasons. But on the other hand stuff like Spyro Reignited, Overwatch, COD, or GTA 5 should be doable, and such ports could sell less than on PS4 but still be profitable/viable.



Liquid_faction on 02 July 2018
curl-6 said:
Liquid_faction said:
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.

"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.

Yes they did, but my point is not whether they made a profit or not, its how big the profit margin is to keep bringing it to the system at that time. COD was not as big in those 5 times they brought over COD. So if they made a couple million here or there, off course they would be happy. In the current Activision, a couple million here and there is not enough. So hypothetically, If a game is made on Switch with a budget of 20 million dollars, but the developers only managed to recuperate 1 million along with the 20 million budget, you're still making 1 million, but in a business standpoint, you'd be stupid investing 20 million to only get 1 million back. Knock off the first three CODs, because COD was not a big franchise back then, so any profits they made was already expected, and knock off last two CODs because by the time COD became a billion dollar franchise, Black Ops and MW3 were already being developed. You need more modern examples, because information about COD and Activision in the Wii era is simply outdated.