Why is the Switch still not getting big games from 3rd parties?

[Megaoverlord12]

zorg1000 said:

Megaoverlord12 said:

I guess I should have specified Western third parties. Going by VGChartz

	Switch	XB1	PS4
FIFA 18	0.37m	2.03m	8.12m
NBA 2k18	0.13m	1.08m	1.90m
Lego City Undercover	0.38m	0.15m	0.33m

Lego sold better, but it was originally a Wii U exclusive, so that's more or less expected plus Lego usually sell pretty decently on Nintendo hardware, likely due to the younger demographics. I don't really have many other good examples for comparison considering that most western third party games on Switch so far are late ports, so direct comparison is unfair. Going by the games that you mentioned (and some other late ports):

	Switch	XB1	PS4
L.A. Noire	0.09m	0.07m	0.15m
Skyrim (First 2 weeks)	0.24m	0.47m	0.81m
DOOM (First 3 weeks)	0.16m	0.29m	0.65m
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 (First 10)	0.18m	0.27m	0.91m
Lego Worlds (First 10)	0.15m	0.20m	0.37m
Skylanders Imaginators (First 10)	0.02m	0.14m	0.24m

Now are these most of these bad figures? I wouldn't say they are, but beyond L.A. Noire (for some reason), all of them are unquestionably lower than XB1/PS4. Now is that fair, considering the Switch's significantly lower install base? Again, not particularly. Still the point remains that major third party games sell less on Nintendo hardware.

As for the developers touting high sales on Switch? Those are almost universally indies. You see Team Meat and Team17 happy. Do you see Bethesda touting how successful Doom or Skyrim was? EA with FIFA? No, because they weren't impressive. I want to be crystal clear. I do not think that indies are lesser. I do not think they are not important. They aren't lesser and they are important. HOWEVER, indies need lower numbers for the Switch to outsell other consoles, something that is greatly helped by the lower quantity of games on the platform. An indie selling 10k is a success, 100k massive, 1m unthinkable. But EA, Ubisoft, Square Enix, etc? Needs more than that.

All of this is on top of what many others here have said, that porting to the Switch takes time. If a game started development in 2015/16 for release in 2017/18, most AAA's literally CAN'T have a Switch version ready around launch. 

The games you listed are flawed for a couple reasons.

1. Most of those released a 1-1.5 years earlier on PS4/XBO so they should by all means be lower even when comparing same time frame.

2. Vgchartz tracking isnt the best source for some of those games, for example Xenoverse 2 officially sold over 400k on Switch as of early Nov and over 500k at the end of 2017.

1. I specifically mentioned they were late ports above that, and I also mentioned that I didn't have a lot of better comparisons specifically for that reason.

2. I'm aware that VGChartz isn't the most reliable metric, but it's the one I used because I can't get reliable numbers for most of them. As unreliable as it is, proof was wanted and VGChartz was the closest thing to proof that I have. As someone who enjoys hearing how games do, I would love to have more reliable numbers.

EDITED: I also specifically note that they are unfair comparisons, but that doesn't change my point. In terms of raw numbers, Switch versions have lower numbers than XB1/PS4. They're not bad, and are far more comparable than Wii U multiplats for example, but still. It'll be far more interesting to see numbers on games that the Switch get at the same time as PS4/XB1.