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The_Liquid_Laser said:
RFA is definitely pulling in people from the Wii. I'll give you that. However, that is the only Switch game pulling the new gamers from the Wii. It also isn't even in the top 10 yet. Perhaps 7m out of the 80m Switch owners are actually new gamers from the Wii. That is still less than 10% of the base. The Wii crowd is not the reason why the Switch is so successful. Just Dance...do you have sales numbers for this? I would love to know how much Just Dance is selling on the Switch. Mario Kart is what Nintendo called a bridge game. It appeals both to new gamers and also to really experienced gamers. It can be hard to tell where those sales are coming from. What I can tell you, for sure, is that Mario Kart was the most popular game on both the Wii U and the 3DS. It is also currently the most popular game on the Switch. It was not the most popular game on the Wii. Wii Sports was by far the most popular game. It is disingenuous to say the Switch is like the Wii and unlike the Wii U and 3DS. The top 10 on the Switch looks a whole closer to the top 10 on the Wii U and 3DS than it does the top 10 on the Wii. Here take a look. This idea that the Switch is selling because it pulled in the Wii gamers that the 3DS and Wii U missed is very much like forcing a square peg into a round hole. These "new" sales the Switch is getting are not coming from the Wii. The extra sales are coming from the PS4 and XB1 crowd. The PSP was essentially a portable PS2. The Switch is essentially a portable PS4, except you can also play it on a TV just fine and it has all of Nintendo's fantastic first party games. Twilight Princess was a launch title, but it did not make it into the Wii's top 10. On the other hand BotW seems to just keep selling. This is not a game for the Wii crowd. It most definitely is a game for PS4 and XB1 gamers. |
Mario Kart is what Nintendo called a bridge game. It appeals both to new gamers and also to really experienced gamers. It can be hard to tell where those sales are coming from. What I can tell you, for sure, is that Mario Kart was the most popular game on both the Wii U and the 3DS. It is also currently the most popular game on the Switch. It was not the most popular game on the Wii. Wii Sports was by far the most popular game.
Uhhhhhhh... so? We'll accept for argument's sake that Wii Sports was the most popular game on the Wii (bundles for both games make it a bit hard to say definitively). Mario Kart 8 still has sold more than 7 million than Mario Kart 7/8Wii U combined. If we assume there is significant overlap between the Wii U and 3DS audience, it seems safe (and rather conservative) to say that there will be 15-20 million more unique Mario Kart 8 owners than there were during the Wii and 3DS era.
Where did those sales come from? Not all from one place obviously, but it seems like the most likely source of additional source would be people that we know liked Mario Kart in the past. Fans of the Wii and DS game seem like a pretty logical suggestion.
It is disingenuous to say the Switch is like the Wii and unlike the Wii U and 3DS. The top 10 on the Switch looks a whole closer to the top 10 on the Wii U and 3DS than it does the top 10 on the Wii. Here take a look.
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/software/wiiu.html
This idea that the Switch is selling because it pulled in the Wii gamers that the 3DS and Wii U missed is very much like forcing a square peg into a round hole. These "new" sales the Switch is getting are not coming from the Wii. The extra sales are coming from the PS4 and XB1 crowd. The PSP was essentially a portable PS2. The Switch is essentially a portable PS4, except you can also play it on a TV just fine and it has all of Nintendo's fantastic first party games.
I don't think Pyro said that... but anyways, how can you compare the Switch top 10 to the Wii to argue that Switch is not getting sales from the Wii, then go on to argue that the extra sales are coming from the PS4 and XB1 crowd.
First off, comparing top ten is sort of an arbitrary cutoff. More importantly though, I don't think anyone is arguing that a large share of the Switch's sales are coming from 3DS owners. They are the most obvious source, so the top 10 is going to look pretty similar. But, the Switch is outpacing the 3DS by about 30 million, so even if we assume 100% of 3DS owners stayed with Nintendo (unlikely) then we still have a big chunk to account for.
You say, that the sales game from PS4 and XBox 1? Well, if you think that top 10 sales are a useful metric, let's look at those.
Our numbers aren't perfect, but they should be good enough for our general purpose.
The top games are Spider-man, GTAV, Uncharted IV, two Call of Duties, two Fifas, Red Dead Redemption, and the Last of Us.
None of these games, nor anything like them, are in the top 10 on the Switch. Putting aside BOTW for a moment, we'll get to it, there is nothing in the top 10 that is remotely like the games that are thriving on Switch. Gritty shooters, sports sims, and open world games, aren't making the Switch a success. If you're judging by top 10 games, you'd have to conclude that the Wii audience is a FAR more likely source of new owners than the PS4.
Twilight Princess was a launch title, but it did not make it into the Wii's top 10. On the other hand BotW seems to just keep selling. This is not a game for the Wii crowd. It most definitely is a game for PS4 and XB1 gamers.
Now we can get to BOTW. I'll grant for argument's sake that Breath of the Wild is "a game for PS4 gamers". Even with that, this is extreme cherry picking.
Sure BOTW is still selling well. But... what else is selling?
Smash Ultimate has more than doubled the 3DS version, and will Ultimately (see what I did there) double the Wii U and 3DS combined.
NSMB U on Switch has already outsold the Wii U version which was a launch title. Very likely will outsell NSMB2.
Mario Odyssey will double (at least) 3D Land sales.
Super Mario Party is approaching 15 million. Sold about 3 million on 3DS.
Animal Crossing Switch will Triple sales of New Leaf by the year's end.
Pokemon Shield has outsold X and Y.
Clubhouse Games has sold over 2.5 million copies.
Oragami King has already outsold Sticker Star by about half a million copies. Ditto for Star Allies.
Twilight Princess vs BOTW is at best one piece of data suggesting that "PS4 style games" are selling well on the Switch (and honestly, I'd say that despite being both open world games there is a monumental difference between BOTW and something like Spider-man). Nothing else that is doing big numbers on the Switch is very PS4 ish.
Meanwhile, pretty much all of Nintendo's key franchises are beating and in most cases outright crushing their 3DS numbers.
If we're trying to see if these gamers came more from the PS4/XBox One crowd or were lapsed Wii/DS owners, we are left with two possibilities.
A) PS4 and XBox Owners came to the Switch in large numbers primarily for BOTW. Despite the Switch not really having the kinds of games that thrived on the PS4. And then, they didn't really buy any of the PS4 style games on the Switch in big numbers. And they traded Fifa, Call of Duty, Halo, Gears of War, and Uncharted for Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Mario Kart, and Mario Party.
or...
B)The Switch appealed to a large swath of lapsed Wii/DS owners, and people with similar tastes. They have been buying games similar to those which they enjoyed on the DS or Wii, which is why games like those have seen large increases in sales. They're not especially interested in PS4ish games, which is why while some of those games do decently on Switch (not saying no PS4 owners bought a Switch), they are not performing exceptionally well. These fans for whatever reason also really like Breath of the Wild. Logical reasons might include the age of the gamers (the younger Switch owners are now old enough for a more complicated game), the quality of the game (Twilight Princess was a great formulaic Zelda game, BOTW is a transcendant potential Game of the Generation), the style of the game (BOTW definitely takes some cues from things like Minecraft that have become quite popular), etc.
If instead of cherry picking (looking just at BOTW, acting as though Wii Sports was the sole game that made the Wii sell, not considering what's selling on PS4/Xbox One) you look at all the data, Wii/DS owners being a major contributor to the Switch's success makes WAY more sense than PS4/XBone owners.
