| TeachMeHisty said: Well the sales are good (overall) but also show the problem. Nintendos 1st party sales make up around 50% of all sales, which means that only around 625m-ish games come from 3rd parties. However, sony only has aprox. 60m 1st party software sales (going by chatGPT, if anyone has a more accurate number, please tell). Given that the PS2 sold around 1.383billion software, that's a 3rd party share of ~ 95% = 3rd parties sold almost twice as good on ps2 compared to Switch. If we factor in that Switch has much more software to offer, we can fairly safely say that those 625m are spread across more devs resulting in even less sales on a per game basis. |
Well you can look at it as if Nintendo's userbase for third parties then is a healthy 73 million install base (half of 146 million) all to 3rd parties with a high attach rate.
That's significantly larger than XBox One or XBox Series S/X, and larger than past Nintendo systems like the Super NES. The software attach rate would also be way more favorable than a system like the 3DS, which sold about 75 million units but only 392 million pieces of software, Switch by comparison is at like 1.3 billion, so even just below half of that is like lets say 610-615 million just for 3rd parties, that dwarfs all Nintendo + 3rd party software for the 3DS (at higher console style software pricing too, another thing 3rd parties will like).
That's still a lot of systems and a lot of games sold basically.
Next time around too the proportion of 3rd party games being closer to 50% or better will likely impact the Switch 2 earlier in the product cycle as with Switch 1, it didn't have a ton of the better 3rd party support until later in the product cycle because Nintendo was coming in off a low point after the Wii U and 3DS (underperformed to expectations). Games like Monster Hunter Rise, The Witcher 3, Persona V, Nier Automata, Dragon Quest XI, Mortal Kombat, etc. only started appearing several years after release. EA only released the modern engine FIFA/FC Soccer last year (Frostbite Engine).
Switch 2 will likely see much stronger 3rd party support from day 1, and I think the split may eventually become 60% third parties, 40% Nintendo, which is what it used to be on the SNES/Super Famicom. As I said Nintendo probably won't be able to release as many games to begin with on a yearly basis as games will be more expensive and take longer to develop with the significant leap forward in visuals.
The other factor is the old 3rd party Sony dominated hierarchy is ending. Whereas in the PS1/PS2 days, Sony could lock away IPs like Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid and keep them away indefinitely from other platform holders, that whole status quo is basically ending. Square-Enix is even reiterating again this week they have to get the Final Fantasy games on other platforms as soon as possible. Sega, who in the past looked off Nintendo platforms for the Yakuza series is now saying that after finally releasing an installment of the series on Switch that sales are way past their expectations. Etc. etc. Game development is so expensive that 3rd parties can't keep games locked on 1 platform any longer, even Sony doesn't want to do that anymore. The landscape is much more favorable for Nintendo now.
Last edited by Soundwave - on 06 November 2024
