Phil Spencer: "Nintendo future exists off their own hardware"

[RolStoppable]

chakkra said:

RolStoppable said:

Software sales would most likely not increase to an appreciable degree, unless one believes that tens of millions of gamers refuse to buy Nintendo hardware to play Nintendo games. In order to believe that, one has to give a lot of weight to the obnoxious voices on the internet who are all for Nintendo going third party. But here's a hint: Even among those who complain the most, most of them did buy Nintendo hardware already.

Wait, are you actually saying with a straight face that if MK8 or Pókemon released next week on PS4-PS5, they wouldn't sell that much?

Heck, if Monster Hunter Rise was able to almost double it's sales numbers in just one year after releasing in other platforms (and being released Day One on a subscription service), what in God's name makes you think that Nintendo games would be any different?

Yes, they wouldn't sell enough. The reasoning is two-fold:

1. Your example of Monster Hunter Rise concerns a game that was known to not be exclusive before it launched on Nintendo Switch. By default, this results in people holding out for ports.

2. The part of my previous post - that you snipped - already explained why it's not just about software sales. Nintendo's games fuel their own ecosystem where they profit off every aspect from it. This means that if they went third party, they'd have to make enough money on other platforms to not only offset what they'll lose on their own platform, but make significantly more than that. So, for example, selling 20m copies of Mario Kart 8 on PS just wouldn't cut it. It would have to be way more than that, because the first drawback of selling Mario Kart 8 on another platform is that Nintendo will have to give away 30% of the profit of their game. So I'd put the magnitude we are talking about in the case of Mario Kart 8, the amount it would have to sell on other platforms at full price to be financially worth it when you also consider all the negative impact on Nintendo's own ecosystem, at well north of 100 million copies.

With 130m Switch consoles already sold, the amount of people holding out for Nintendo games on other platforms can be safely said to be very low.

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Regarding another leak: LOL at Phil Spencer's judgment of the state of the Xbox Series before its launch. With all the things being revealed with these leaks, it's no surprise whatsoever that Xbox gets manhandled so much. Xbox is in a distant third place and has no exclusive games and will get no exclusive games; it's the story of a company who believed that it can rewrite the rules of the console business.

Regarding big companies buying smaller companies: I am not holding the opinion that consolidation is bad by default. If a mediocre or bad company gets bought by a better company, then it's fine because management will be taken over by better people. This is why Microsoft buying Activision is okay, because Microsoft has a better track record as third party publisher than Activision. But if a good company gets bought by a worse company, then it's a bad thing. Hence why Microsoft buying Nintendo is such a terrible thought, because Microsoft's track record as first party is pathetic in comparison to Nintendo.