Famitsu Sales: Week 4, 2023 (16 Jan - 22 Jan)

[Kai_Mao]

Farsala said:

Kai_Mao said:

It’s a well known strategy to have consumers potentially double dip after getting the PS4/5 version. I’m just not sure if it works out the way they believe it does. Like Demon Slayers for example. Probably could’ve done better with all platforms at the same launch date (instead of releasing the switch version later when whatever hype of the game already died out months after the movie came out) while releasing alongside the hype of the movie. I don’t remember if the switch version of Demon Slayer even charted in the NPD charts for Nintendo games when launched.

It isn't just a corporate strategy though. It is genuinely quite difficult to port from PS4/PS5 to Switch. A Switch port day 1 would lead to months of delays.

Even PS4/PS5 games to PC requires a dedicated porting developer.

So in your Demon Slayer example, they would miss the hype of the movie regardless.

You’re probably right. But even then, it kinda sticks out considering people talked about the lack of a switch version when it was initially announced. And considering Demon Slayer was a big deal in Japan (and worldwide) people would question it when the best selling console by a large margin in Japan had to wait its turn months later with not as much fanfare since nothing from the franchise was releasing alongside it and a good amount of consumers had their fill with the PS4/5 version.

And I looked up the NPD charts when it released on Switch, it was number 10 on Nintendo Switch for the month it released. So while not bad, it probably could’ve done better releasing alongside the other platforms or at least not too far after they released. So in the end, they still likely missed out on sales that could’ve been.