Nintendo made several eastern third parties pretty happy with the Switch, it seems. Just look at it:
Konami - Super Bomberman R - 500k sales. That's quite a lot!
Capcom - USFII and MHXX so far. Both will do pretty good. Of course MHXX will sell much more, but Street Fighter's sales will be good nontheless, relatively speaking to the resources put into it.
Sega - Puyo Puyo x Tetris sees strong sales so far. I hope Sonic Mania strikes hard as it fits right into the nostalgia train.
Square Enix - Dragon Quest XI and Dragon Quest Heroes I+II are a strong commitment. Those games will strike in Japan for sure. Project Octopath Traveler still has me excited. I hope it sells well.
Koei Tecmo - Fire Emblem Warriors should do quite okay if Hyrule Warriors can be used as an indicator.
Atlus - Here's hope that Shin Megami Tensei becomes a hit.
Nippon Ichi Software - Disgaea 5 saw high preorders of around 200k. That's a good number.
Namco Bandai - A Tales game is announced, and Tales is very popular both in Japan and the US. They also announced a Classics Collection in a Direct recently, but I honestly can't tell how good this will sell.
Western third parties don't give a fuck about the Switch it seems, safe for Skyrim, but I'll wait and see how many sales this will get. Hard to tell for me. Oh right, Minecraft should do okay no matter where it releases on.
So, after all, the way Nintendo colaborates with eastern third parties seems to be the right one as they all see quite some success. Notice that all of these games above have a significant arcady feel to them which seems to resonate very well with the target audience. All of them don't have the shiny AAA stigma yet still sell good. Therefore, I conclude that Nintendo doesn't need western third parties. They are just the icing on the cake.
I believe many western third parties will use Skyrim as an indicator towards gamers' interest in western games. So this is not in Nintendo's hands, Bethesda is in charge on this front now. Let's pray for the best...
