Why are third party games selling well on Switch?

[Soundwave]

Barkley said:

Soundwave said:

It still shows people are willing to try/buy a more diverse offering of Switch software, we've also seen from Nintendo's reports that many of these games are selling very well like Hollow Knight. There have been spikes for things like FIFA on the eShop and Octopath has done really well there too. 

I don't think anyone has questioned the sale of indie games though. When people say third party games aren't selling well, they are generally referring to Western AAA games. Not Indies or Japanese titles. Small digital titles do very well on the Switch.

The sales of those games show the system is having success with a broader audience and there is content that can appeal to the Switch crowd it doesn't all have to be Mario + Pokemon + casual games. 

We don't have a large enough sample size of Western AAA games. I'd bet a lot of money if you put GTA or Call of Duty on Switch, it would probably sell quite well. Skyrim seems to have done decent (probably north of 500k), same with FIFA, the two most notable Switch third party exclusives are arguably Octopath and Bomberman R (1 year exclusive) ... both are gonna top 1 million in sales. 2/2 is not bad. 

Even with Nintendo published stuff we see Xenoblade is probably going to cruise past 1.5 million en route to 2 million+ most likely. Bayonetta 2's port on Switch outsold the Wii U version in 9 short weeks and is likely past 400k. If there's a market for Xenoblade and Bayonetta on this thing ... there's going to be a market for different kinds of third party games. 

Switch's user demographics are also very clear -- overwhelmingly 16+ in age with the vast majority being adults.