| quickrick said: As a business decision is stupid to lock yourself to a 20 million user base, and that why nobody is really doing it, unless it's a low budget project, that's targeting 1-2 million sales. imagine a ambitious developer lets lock out over 200 million users with PC gaming rigs included, and choose to go exclusive on the weakest hardware, which is really gonna limit what they want to do. |
If business were as simple as you think it is anyone could do it.
Some indies are selling more on Switch than on all other platforms combined, so what is important is not the size of the respective install bases but how much of the install base you can reach. Furthermore, to succeed on cutting-edge hardware with a AAA game you are going to have to invest a lot more money on the technical side than you would in producing a game for a relatively undemanding platform. Thirdly, you're going to have to spend less on advertising (which is one of the biggest costs for a AAA game) when you launch for a system that has a very good marketing channel to those 20 million owners. Fourthly, if you're starting development right now then advent of the next gen for Sony and Microsoft provides additional risk for cost & sales.
Does that mean that there's a clear business argument for going to Switch? No, it's a risk either way. But if I were an investor in videogame stocks I'd be asking why I'm not getting a share of the gold rush on Switch. Large companies don't need to bet the farm to develop for Switch; they have the money to do it as part of a balanced strategy but they chose in some cases to be underexposed to the Switch market and that's hurting them in the bottom line, which is all many publically-quoted companies care about.
