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Forums - Nintendo - Regarding Switch third party support: Developers don't care about power

GoOnKid said:
DonFerrari said:

Still, releasing 10% of the products and retaining 70% of the marketshare is to much.

Do you have any idea how this could be changed?

Some.But we will always go eggs or chicken on it.

To get the biggest releases Nintendo would need to have launched a stronger HW.

3rd parties won't likely make exclusives tailored to Switch because they would lose over 100M userbase on PS4X1.

The games that can be ported without much hussle are going one after another to Switch.

But if you want to go and consider that 70% of sales is because there aren't other SW competing (the 10% shows you are wrong) and some of those 90% SW are multiplats that sold considerably better on PS4X1 (like Fifa).

As I always say, it is Nintendo HW. So if they want more ports of bigger games (that wouldn't be a simple work) they should get in talk and perhaps even help finance the porting. It's a long work.

Mnementh said:
DonFerrari said:

Still, releasing 10% of the products and retaining 70% of the marketshare is to much.

There are two reasons for it:

First: Nintendo is an insanely successful game maker.

Second: Most high prolific games aren't releasing on Nintendo platforms.

See, Ubisoft would have much higher sales on Switch, if the had released Destiny, Assassins Creed, For Honor and Far Cry. Because currently these high profile IPs add to the sales for Ubisoft games on Switch... nothing.

Yes such an easy task to release those games on Switch right? Just row a slider and done.

You can fairly compare only the games released on all platforms: Just Dance, Fractured but Whole, Doom, Skyrim, Wolfenstein. Many of these are old ports. Hmm, VGC has no data (yet?) for Switch sales of South Park and Wolfenstein. For Skyrim I gfo with the special edition as the release for PS4 and XB1.

  PS4 Xbox One Switch
Just Dance 2018 0.25M 0.18M 0.53M
Doom 2.58M 1.36M 0.33M
Skyrim 3.04M 1.69M 0.82M
Minecraft: Story Mode 0.87M 0.77M 0.34M
Dragon Quest Builders 0.58M - 0.15M
Disgaea 5 0.35M - 0.30M
Lego Worlds 0.93M 0.55M 0.38M
FIFA 18 11.01M 2.86M 0.81M
NBA 2K18 3.05M 1.85M 0.35M
Puyo Puyo Tetris 0.10M - 0.42M

So, do 3rd-party games sell worse on Nintendo-platforms? Yes. Is it that bad as painted by the data cited by Meggiddo? No, because that is because many games are not released on Nintendo in the first place. So, the 70% market share is because the other game makers leave the platform to Nintendo. What should Nintendo do? Not release games?

10 games showed as third parties show the 90% of SW released? Nope. Are all the rest garbage level that no one would buy? I doubt it.

So, these numbers do indeed explain why 3rd-parties are shy to release on Nintendo-platforms. No need to angle for power-explanations or conspiracies or anything. But the dominance of Nintendo-software is because basically so many games are missing on the platform.

We will see more data in the future, with more multi-platform releases like Dark Souls Remastered, Dragon Quest XI and so on.

You know that Nintendo dominance on their HW goes way back to when games started being multiplat right? And I particularly have no issue with they selling good on their HW, after all they make their HW to tailor their SW.

The only issue I have is people that think the 3rd parties doesn't release because they want to screw Nintendo over. Power helps the problem (the easier to port, the less it will cost, most likely to get released), lack of market interest in the platform helps, bad relationship of the past help. Nintendo can't solve the power problem in a HW already released. But they can work out APIs that would make porting simpler, they could negotiate some high profile games to be ported with their help (which as far as we know they don't do, Sony done a lot on PS3 and I think MS also does) or funding.

All in all, Switch is an excellent HH capable of playing Console level games to a decent standard, but mainly done to play Nintendo games (and considering how many and how good they are, someone just playing Nintendo won't be starved for games).

Pemalite said:
TheMisterManGuy said:

Square Enix even said that its very similar to the PS4 in terms of core architecture.

Square Enix is wrong.
ARM and Maxwell is extremely different to x86 and Graphics Core Next.

The similarities that the Switch and Playstation 4 have is actually on the software side... Both leverage a *nix derived OS, both share common API's like OpenGL and Vulkan.

Nem said:
They do.

If you got a sucessful underpowered system, they obviously care about making money, so they will make cheap ports if it's worth it and technicly feasible, for an easy buck. But, the latest stuff doesn't come over. But, it's obviously not the only issue.

This. It all comes down to whether it is financially feasible, said feasibility will obviously increase with the more hardware units that have been shifted... To the point where sometimes companies can justify creating a game+game engine almost entirely from scratch to take full advantage of said lower specced machine.

RolStoppable said:
AAA publishers want their business centered on PS and Xbox, so PC and Nintendo routinely get the short end of the stick.

PC gets the majority of Multiplats? Very rarely does the PC miss out on a big AAA multiplatform exclusive.

Conina said:

And Doom ain't a highly demanding game.

Well. Yes and no. It has some technical showcases that can't be ignored.
But the main reason why it got a port to the Switch was because it was a 60fps title, there was tons of room to move by cutting that down to 30fps and making some visual concessions elsewhere.

The big strength the Switch has is that from a GPU feature set perspective it is equivalent (And in some aspects exceeds) the Xbox One and Playstation 4... Which is something the WiiU or Wii didn't share.

Soundwave said:
I don't think it's as simple as anything can be ported. Porting from a 1.2 TFLOP console (XBox One) to run on a portable that needs to be at 153 GFLOPS for portable mode isn't easy.

Flops is a theoretical performance ceiling and not representative of real-world performance.



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Mnementh said:
The_Liquid_Laser said:

Bethesda isn't really "big".  EA, Activision and Ubisoft are "big".  They release several big budget titles every year.  Don't expect them to release their biggest budget titles for the Switch when they get released for the PS4 and XB1.  They could do it if they wanted to, but they just don't want to.  For example, Madden has been on platforms much weaker than the Switch for years and years.    It would be ridiculously easy for them to release Madden on Switch if they wanted to.  They just don't want to.

I agree, but Madden is a bad example. Madden is EA, and EA and Nintendo are special somehow. I never really saw a good support by EA in recent generations. But Ubisoft and Activision are more neutral to Nintendo (Ubisoft even somewhat positive), and they release some bigger stuff - but by far not all. For instance Ubi has Just Dance, Steep and Mario+Rabbids for Switch, but not Ass Creed. I think porting cost vs. expected sales make this a too hard decision. It might or might not change with a bigger userbase.

I was just throwing out three of the biggest companies.  There are other big ones including some Japanese ones: Take Two, Square Enix, Capcom, Namco Bandai (arguably a couple more, but I'll stop here).  They all have a little different relationship with Nintendo, but I am kind of lumping them all together.  But you are right we can ignore EA, because hating Nintendo is part of their corporate culture. 

Let's just look at the other 6: Activision, Ubisoft, Take Two, Square Enix, Capcom, Namco Bandai.  For them it is mostly just business.  Sure they support Nintendo here and there, but if you look where the majority of their games go it is either Sony only or Sony/Microsoft simultaneous release.  In particular, their biggest budget games do not go to Nintendo platforms.  The reason why they don't want to support Nintendo is that they are big third party companies.  They have an advantage on any console where development costs are high.  They can outspend the little guys.  The big Western publishers, in particular, are not even very good at competing on handhelds where the playing field is more level.  Do Activision or Take Two really have big selling games on a handheld?  Not really.  Instead they are on a platform where they can get outsold regularly by Level 5 or some other smaller company.

So do the big third parties, especially Western third parties, really want Nintendo to succeed?  Not really.  They do much better business with Sony and Microsoft.  They can put in the development costs to compete on a high end console.  They will back Nintendo if they have to, especially if the Switch gets a really large install base, but expect them to drag their feet along the way.



Mnementh said:
DonFerrari said:

Still, releasing 10% of the products and retaining 70% of the marketshare is to much.

There are two reasons for it:

First: Nintendo is an insanely successful game maker.

Second: Most high prolific games aren't releasing on Nintendo platforms.

See, Ubisoft would have much higher sales on Switch, if the had released Destiny, Assassins Creed, For Honor and Far Cry. Because currently these high profile IPs add to the sales for Ubisoft games on Switch... nothing.

You can fairly compare only the games released on all platforms: Just Dance, Fractured but Whole, Doom, Skyrim, Wolfenstein. Many of these are old ports. Hmm, VGC has no data (yet?) for Switch sales of South Park and Wolfenstein. For Skyrim I gfo with the special edition as the release for PS4 and XB1.

  PS4 Xbox One Switch
Just Dance 2018 0.25M 0.18M 0.53M
Doom 2.58M 1.36M 0.33M
Skyrim 3.04M 1.69M 0.82M
Minecraft: Story Mode 0.87M 0.77M 0.34M
Dragon Quest Builders 0.58M - 0.15M
Disgaea 5 0.35M - 0.30M
Lego Worlds 0.93M 0.55M 0.38M
FIFA 18 11.01M 2.86M 0.81M
NBA 2K18 3.05M 1.85M 0.35M
Puyo Puyo Tetris 0.10M - 0.42M

So, do 3rd-party games sell worse on Nintendo-platforms? Yes. Is it that bad as painted by the data cited by Meggiddo? No, because that is because many games are not released on Nintendo in the first place. So, the 70% market share is because the other game makers leave the platform to Nintendo. What should Nintendo do? Not release games?

So, these numbers do indeed explain why 3rd-parties are shy to release on Nintendo-platforms. No need to angle for power-explanations or conspiracies or anything. But the dominance of Nintendo-software is because basically so many games are missing on the platform.

We will see more data in the future, with more multi-platform releases like Dark Souls Remastered, Dragon Quest XI and so on.

Those aren't bad numbers at all for the Switch considering its install base is still a ways below the XBox One even. As the Switch user base grows, if they can get some of those numbers to grow, those would be fairly healthy sales, I think EA for example is already happy with 800k+ copies of FIFA, but if you could grow that to 1.3-1.6 million, that would be a good success. Ditto for a release like Skyrim. 

And btw, Street Fighter 30th Anniversary collection is in stock for PS4 now with 1 day shipping on Amazon and the Switch version is still outselling it comfortably by the looks of things, just for the guy trying to use that as an excuse earlier on. 

I think if Fortnite and GTAV come out for Switch this year, both are topping 1 million in sales easily.

Last edited by Soundwave - on 31 May 2018

I would certainly hope if Fortnite and GTAV came out for the Switch this year that they would top 1 million.

That's only like 5% of the userbase. It would be astronomically pathetic if such big games couldn't clear that mark, especially since one is free-to-play.



Megiddo said:

I would certainly hope if Fortnite and GTAV came out for the Switch this year that they would top 1 million.

That's only like 5% of the userbase. It would be astronomically pathetic if such big games couldn't clear that mark, especially since one is free-to-play.

Obviously those two would crush that barrier. I suspect FIFA 19 has a good shot at topping 1 million on Switch too, World Cup is this year plus the Switch user base will be considerably larger than it was when FIFA 18 launched. I'd like to see that NBA 2K number come up a bit as well. I think Capcom is going to be very happy with Megaman 11 and Street Fighter 30th Anniversary sales on Switch. 

I think if Switch can get to 

GTAV - 2-3 million+

FIFA 19 - 1 million+ 

Ocotopath Traveller - 800k-1 million+

That bodes very, very well for the system, it's not about matching the PS4, but having a nice sized niche where third parties can make a decent amount of money and building up from there.



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I think OP has a point here. Power is not the heart of the matter, money is.

Doom and Wolfenstein could be made on Switch, but they most likely took vast amount of time/manpower/money and in the end Doom sold only a slight percentage of what the PS4/X1 versions did before. Publishers can't afford to make games for systems where there is little potential audience, hence Bethesda not announcing Rage 2 or Fallout 76 for Switch despite being a big supporter of the hybrid. On the other hand, EA is keeping FIFA Switch on a original engine because it has achieved long and steady sales.



Switch isn't a "little" potential audience though. Skyrim and FIFA are already posting solid sales relative to its user base size, and you have something like the M-rated Bayonetta 2 which isn't even a new game already sold through around 400k on the system too.

Switch has an older audience that is more core centric that what one might expect from a Nintendo system, lots of third parties could make good money off it as its user base grows past 25 million.

Like I said I think 1+ million is definitely in play for FIFA 19 and Skyrim may eventually leg itself to a million also.



I mean, I'm sure FIFA 19 can hit a million on the Switch. That's still 10 million less than FIFA 18 on PS4 YTD and only ~5% of the total userbase (whereas FIFA is owned by ~20% of the PS4 userbase).

Switch fans should be aiming much higher than just one million for the largest sports game on the planet. Mario Strikers on Wii sold 2.5 mil right? No reason that portable FIFA on a huge userbase can't reach that.



Megiddo said:
I mean, I'm sure FIFA 19 can hit a million on the Switch. That's still 10 million less than FIFA 18 on PS4 YTD and only ~5% of the total userbase (whereas FIFA is owned by ~20% of the PS4 userbase).

Still, you take a look at those Switch numbers, if those numbers all double as the userbase grows from 15 millon into 30+ million or even grows by 50% ... that's pretty healthy sales for a lot of those games. For example if a FIFA game were to hit say 1.6 mill (doubling the 800k of FIFA 18) on the Switch, that starts to inch close to what the XBox version sells. 

FIFA is one of the PS4's biggest sellers, but PS4 also has 4x the userbase, if you went 800k x 4, that's 3.2 million sales scaled up relative to the Switch's userbase ... I'm sure EA would do backflips if FIFA can retain a 5% tie-in to the Switch user base. It's not about matching, this isn't a contest. It's about showing there's a reasonable enough sized market for third party software. 



TheMisterManGuy said:

At first glance, it's easy to dismiss the Switch as yet another first party-centric Nintendo console as it's so far not been able to get a whole lot of third party multiplatform titles from PS4 and Xbox One. You could say that its because NIntendo chose to make another under-powered console and that they should've made a PS4 killer if they wanted third parties. While that sounds good on paper, many gamers forget, or don't want to admit one thing regarding third party support. Developers, actually don't care about power that much. 

Now this doesn't mean power isn't important, it's always important. But ultimately, its actually one of the least important aspects when it comes to developers deciding to support a console. A console's third party support actually has little to do with how powerful it is. It has more to do with audience, user-base, ease of development, and any unique gimmicks or features. Take the Nintendo DS for example, yeah compared to the PSP, it was woefully under-powered. But to third parties, that didn't matter. Why? It sold 150 million units worldwide, a diverse range of consumers buying different kinds of games for it, had a bunch of then innovative tools to play with such as the touch screen, the graphics were good enough for most genres, and it was easy and cheap to develop for. As a result, it received just as good, in several cases better support than the PSP. 

Now I know some of you will try and use the Wii as a counter argument, but the Wii had a whole different set of issues regarding third party support. First, the console wasn't developed with HD in mind, which meant it lacked the shaders and development tools needed for HD games, which often meant porting to the Wii required re-developing the game from scratch. The Wii Remote and Nunchuck also had a limited button layout, which meant the control schemes would've had to have been drastically reworked, often giving certain actions to motion controls, which for certain actions and uses, aren't the most precise options available. And even though the Wii sold 100 million systems worldwide, a good majority of those sales came from casuals and non-gamers, who bought it for Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and other similar titles. Which meant more core gamer oriented titles often under preformed, and this affected how developers saw the console. 

The Switch by contrast has none of those issues. While its no Xbox One, the Switch is powerful enough that most PS4 and Xbox One content can be ported over with relative ease. Much like the DS, it's easy and low-cost to develop games for thanks to its Nvidia Chip-set and development tools, making it an especially attractive option for indie developers. It has a bunch of neat gimmicks and novelties, but unlike the Wii Remote, the Joy-Con also have the layout of a standard controller, which means they can act as a traditional controller when needed. And even more so than the Wii or DS, the Switch is appealing to a wide variety of consumers and gamers, who are buying a variety of different types of games for it. Not only are casual stuff like Just Dance and 1-2 Switch doing well, but so are Breath of the Wild, NBA 2k, Skyrim, Street Fighter, and a slew of indie titles. Switch owners are buying core games, lots of them, and that's encouraging to third parties. 

Point is, the Switch is in the best position to have Nintendo's most reliable third party support in years, despite being less powerful than the contemporaries. Now this doesn't mean every game will get ported over, there are obviously limits to what you can run on a tablet. But if third party sales keep up, we won't be missing as many games as you may think. 

It's still a wii though in a sense. No matter how you spin it it's  still a wii approach on market.  It might be different idea but based on same concept (not traditional consoles) and not following the same of up to date hardware and not on the same targeted market.