| Sephiran said: Pretty crazy that MH Wilds can't have a bigger launch on 3 big platforms day 1 than what TOTK had on just the Switch. Is the PC market smaller than most people think? If Steam was much bigger than Switch in terms of user base, how can big Switch only games have a bigger launch than big PC launches (Plus Xbox and PS)? |
Userbase size is only a small part of the equation although I don't think any has suggested steams active userbase is much more than Switch. Also worth noting that there is cross ownership amongst platforms.
Nintendo 1st party software has massive attach rates as people buy the hardware primarily to play a select handful of Nintendo franchises. Nintendo could have half the userbase of Steam and still have a 1st party games competing with steams biggest releases. This goes as far back as data gives us insight to. Despite having a userbase 1/3 size of the PS1, Mario 64 (11m) sold on par with PS1s biggest titles GT & FFVII (10m)
PC/PS5 have software sales spread over a much wider portion of games. There are typically around 5x as many big software launches on Playstation/Steam versus the Switch for example. This next 4 weeks alone you're comparing MH Wilds (prequel sold 20m+), Split Fiction (prequel sold 20m+), Assasins Creed Shadows (prequel sold 20m+) to the biggest Switch release Xenoblade chronicles X remastered (last entry sold 1.8m). This is just to highlight competition on the other platforms. Even in Switches peak years, you typically have 1 or 2 major Switch releases a quarter whereas the other platforms normally have that per month.
Ultimately both Monster Hunter and Zelda are doing crazy numbers that fans wouldn't of dreamed of a decade ago, I don't think there's much sense in a direct comparison. If we want to randomly compare high selling games, Red Dead Redemption 2 has hit 70m, when will TOTK? :D
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