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

[DonFerrari]

Miyamotoo said:

DonFerrari said:

So you swear there is no game on Nintendo platforms that have retailed for over 60 USD since Wii? And that it's impossible anyone would launch it for over 60?

If i'm not wrong you can have memory card to expand your memory and also 25GB is enough to download a 20GB game (Did you complain on WiiU for all those games that were bigger in size than the full HD of some WiiU versions - and that not even being a portable?) And you really can manage your drive and only keep the game you are playing (but I'm sure some people will claim they like to have 10 games installed or played at the same time for whatever reason). The fact is, if you need to download you can't really just insert the game and play so whatever the side of the download (and it was again Nintendo decision on the size of their internal drive, so are you going to blame Nintendo for it or reason out why they had to do this and shift the problem to developers?).

Game was hinted by who? Do we have any announcement made by Nintendo or R*?

Sure I'm not claiming they are facts. But you are the one trying to pass what "credible insiders" said as some type of fact even by indirect association of what they said. The blowing is about you trying to cover all the holes with suppositions.

Let's suppose GTAV could sell 5M units on Switch, and use your figure of 10USD additional cost for the cartridge (50M cost). So instead of the regular 27 USD per copy the publisher would get https://kotaku.com/5479698/what-your-60-really-buys they are only getting 17USD per copy or 85M revenue (which is much more than 0).

"And that's a sea change in our business, and recurrent consumer spending is 42% of our net bookings in the quarter," he continued. "It's been transformative for us and the only reason it's transformative for us is because it's transformative to our consumers. (source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-11-08-take-two-wants-recurrent-consumer-spending-from-every-title-wont-always-be-microtransactions ).

And that is of a $443.6 million revenue quarter. With GTAV being the biggest bringer. So let's say that makes 170M on ingame purchase and that only half of it are for GTA V giving 85M (I believe is more). With GTA having about 100M owners we could say that each 1M owner brings in 0.85M in revenue per quarter. So delaying a game for 2 years would mean about 6.8M per 1M user missed or on 5M users that would mean 34M.

Also considering the longer they take to release the game the closer GTA VI will be to launch, so it could take 1, 2 or even more millions from sale.

Plus if we take in count the money they already invested on the porting (unfortunately we don't know how much was expend) and like 5% interest ratio per year (probably more on cost of opportunity).

So we can easily see the "loss" of 50M in profit for selling on lower margin (let's pretend they aren't selling for much less on the platforms, for more than 10USD difference) would be either covered on other revenues or the loses on sales (total volume or ingame) and interest ratio would actually make a situation that it doesn't make much sense to hold the game.

Swear? Look at price point of Switch, PS4, XB1, PS3, 360, Wii U, Wii...you will see that highest price point is $60 for any platform, expect of special edition, steal books and similar.

General rule sure. But we have had games costing over 60 USD (standard edition) since at least SNES.

https://www.gamestop.com/wii-u/games/hello-kitty-kruisers/114210 (regular price 69.99)

It may not be common anymore to launch over 60 for regular editions, but it's hardly a prohibition.

Yes you could, buy maybe game is more than 40GB with all updates, we dont know thats a point. All Wii U games could fit on Wii U disks and Wii U disks were not expansive, so totally different situation compared to Switch.

Yes, Switch situation is even worse, agreed. And if you at any point need 50GB updates (As I said we already have had 100GB day one patch) then the size of the cart discussion will become null and void.

Hinted by those same insider they were very accurate about previous Switch rumours or generally rumors and insiders information.

Ow ok, rumour.

We still talking about rumours, but when rumours come from multiply very credible insiders that were very accurate before, than those rumours are definitely much more believable.

You may believe how many rumours you want. They may still be wrong on any given situation. Can you show all of them having 100% accuracy exaustively? Because I prize reason over rumors, and letting money stopped isn't a smart thing. Nor is avoiding to get money. Could your justification be true? Sure it could, it just doesn't seem like it. As other said, they would know the price of the cartridge before hand, they would know the targeted size as well.

But point is that every company wants maximum profit in any case, so they will work to achieve that in any case, and $10 less profit per game is huge problem for any dev including R*, thats why no one using 32GB Switch carts yet. Again, we dont know details, maybe from start was plan to release game on 64GB carts but delay of them delayed game also, or maybe 32GB carts ended much more expensive than they thought so they waiting for cheaper price point of 32GB carts, on maybe from start was plan to release game in 2019. alongside cheaper 32GB carts or 64GB carts, maybe game is canceld and maybe they never even planed to release game on Switch (less likly). Again, we can only speculate for now what could be with GTAV, but fact is that we talking about real problem when we talk about size and cost of Switch carts that definitely affecting 3rd party devs espacily when we talking about big games.

Sure every company wants to maximize profits... Still Sony doesn't go and make games as cheap as Nintendo to increase their profit, each company have their own study on how to do their business. And if as I showed you, waiting two years to release a finished game may end up giving less profit than eating up the immediate cost. Sony and MS have paid several dozen millions on marketing exclusivity itself, so I fail to see how a deal would be impossible for R* and Nintendo.

So you think it is less likely that they decided not to make a Switch version than they didn't had a firm price and release date from Nintendo and that they have no contract for the release of the game or that they will postpone for couple years due to it? Just look how much sales Rise of Tomb Raider lost due to postponing PS4 release and calculate how much it must have costed MS to buy the timed exclusivity and you may guess the cost of standing still. But I like that you just crossed all the revenue analysis and will hold strong on losing all revenue from the sales.

What @Mnementh post, also proves that, what that dev said is totally in line with what insiders from Resetera also said.

Here Abstraction Games about the port of Ark Survival to the Switch: "Performance is not really the issue. The issue instead is in the size of carts. The 32GB carts are expensive, you shouldn't be wanting to do that. So we need to fit everything on 16GB, whereas the standard game on PS4 is much, much larger. It's a crazy ratio we're talking about."

Are we comparing ARK Survival with GTA V? Sure, we can say that God of War is totally feasible on Switch besides the small issue of cartdrige, must also be the reason RE7 launched without even having a cartridge, but owww wait streamed.

 

Mnementh said:

Dunno who said that. But actual developers and porters talk about the cartridges as problem. Here Abstraction Games about the port of Ark Survival to the Switch:

He continues: "Performance is not really the issue. The issue instead is in the size of carts. The 32GB carts are expensive, you shouldn't be wanting to do that. So we need to fit everything on 16GB, whereas the standard game on PS4 is much, much larger. It's a crazy ratio we're talking about."

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-03-21-how-they-got-ark-survival-evolved-working-on-switch

Yeah, I forget about that, it very obvious we talking about real problem when comes to size and cost of Switch carts, and that effecting most on big games.

Yes actual developers and porters, not one of them being R*

So if I pick another developer we prove the point that cartridge size isn't the issue? http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=224964&page=1#

Conina said:

Miyamotoo said:

Because highest price point on market was always $60 if we dont count some kind of special editions/steal books and similar. No one would make price point of $70 if highest point for any game on market is $60, not Nintendo, R* or any one else. No its not little difference between downloading 5GB and 20GB, especially when Switch has internal memory of around 25GB for user. Yeah, I speculating about GTAV also, game was hinted before for Switch and its hinted it's one of those game this problem effect on it also. I also gave answers on all those 4 solutions why maybe why they are not using those solution or they are not good solutions (and $70 price point is easily worst one). Dont act like you talking about facts, because you don't, like I said, we don't know exact details, we can only guess and speculate, while clear fact is that Switch carts cost more than BD disks for PS4/XB1 espacily when we talking about bigger cart sizes (going from 8GB) and that Switch has capacity problem, so its logical to assume that those things are problem for some 3rd parties.

So where is the big problem? Usually most big third party games come in at least 3 editions:

They could offer the cheapest edition for $60 on a 16 GB card with a partial download and the more expensive versions (with much higher profit margins) on a 32 GB card with the full game on the card (or the "ultimate edition" even on a 64 GB card if necessary).

 

No. they can't, no one would ever want to buy GTA V or RDR2 for over 60.