Well, XBOne games usually don't sell as much as their PS4 versions, but the console still gets games regardless. Why would the Switch be different?

The argument is very rarely based on simple profit/loss.It's more about opportunity cost. If the amount of money to be made is too small, then the time spent would be better served working on a project that'll provide a better ROI. It's very apparent in how companies handle Limited Run Games, they've approached Tecmo Koei and Sega about several projects, guaranteeing at least $300,000 in profit, but that number is too small for them to spend the time on licensing and management. Despite the fact that LRG would handle distribution, promotion, and shipping.

Due to this dynamic, you have studios dedicated to remasters and porting being so prolific. They can handle the job that is near guaranteed to make a little money + build a fanbase on another platform without disrupting the work flow of the main team.

I didn't say it matter. But you can't with a straight face say that the success is equal between a version selling 10M and another 1M just because both did profit. You can say both were successful if they had good profit and got their sequence... but if the first didn't sell 10M there would be even a game to port to get the other 1M.

Nope didn't say they don't make bad decision or mistakes. What I said is that they aren't dumb, so when they decide to not make a port or a game is because they analysis had better profits on the decision they took (even if after occuring you can infer that the decision was wrong they didn't just choose thinking it was the worse option). Which is my point, when a port doesn't happen it isn't due to hate for Nintendo or dumbness of devs. Most people in VGC doesn't even administer any company to even have any idea of decision making process involved and just go on platform alliance to spout nosense on multiple conspiracy theories.

And here I thought that you already agreed that if a game skip Switch was because it probably wouldn't seel enough to justificate the port (which is covered on "3rd party doesn't sell on Nintendo"), you are just taking offense on a generalization that is more often than not true.

We can learn that if a port is viable and profitable the company will greenlight. So no paranoia of Nintendo hate.

Yep I agree that just "profiting" isn't enough. It need to profit enough to be a good choice against other uses of that invesment (like make DLCs).

Your evidence is on a very small sample of titles choosen to go to Switch because they would do good there. Or do you think if every single game was ported to Switch they would tie in sales with X1?

Don't talk about management terms and reasoning.... Everybody would invest 10M to get 100k profit right? Owww but you could invest the same 10M to profit 3M with a DLC... make a simple decision, invest 20M and get both, money is infinite and is easy and risk free to invest in everything =P

"Generally speaking, it's not all that expensive to port a game that already exists. The game itself may need to sell millions in total to turn a profit, but a port might only need to sell, say, 500k to recoup the costs of conversion."

No one enters business to break even.

This argument seems to be centered on the idea that turning a profit alone is enough to deem a project a success. It's not. The goal of a business is to leverage assets so that they deliver the most ROI possible. This is especially true in game development, where developers themselves are the most important resource. Developer time must be used wisely.

Resource management is the core of business. It's a lot more complicated than "if you can turn a profit then you should do it."

This is exactly true. It is also that management usually looks for bigger projects, even if the relation of resources to profit isn't that bad. Either way, personal preferences and politics are also important, especially for smaller projects like ports, so you have companies that are more willing to port to Switch and others that are more reluctant.

I present only data, not a theory. And we don't have more data-points, because these are the ported games. If more games go multiplat between the three (like Wolfenstein, Bomberman, Minecraft, FIFA 19 and so on) we have more data-points to see in which direction this develops.

When a game can take even 5 years to be made, resources management is very critical. With the sales of Switch and the ports we can expect to see more and more ports, almost any time it is possible. But you are totally right, it isn't just breaking even, they need to make enough profit that it makes more sense to make the port than anything else.

A pool this small can be easily distorted. I bet we could pick several games on this gen that X1 sold very close to PS4 even with PS4 for most time getting 2x1 on HW. Or consider games that sell most in a single market and that distort the notion of WW HW.

With over 30 games the data-pool isn't THAT small. And some patterns already emerge: Switch seems to do better for Platformers and japanese style games, while Xbox One fares better on Sports games and Shooters. Luckily we have soon data for games to test these patterns: with Crash another platformer goes multiplat, with Bomberman and Dark Souls japanese games. Wolfenstein is another shooter and FIFA 19 and NBA 2K19 more sports games. So watching these we can verify or dismiss these patterns.

Also, so far most multiplats were late ports for Switch. If the data is skewed, it is probably not random but has a systematic component in this. It will be interesting to watch how the sales for the mentioned titles will develop.

You basically answered yourself.

The genres where Switch won (and have even won against PS4 version for 1 or 2 games if I'm not wrong) are ones that would likely be that from start.

But considering most AAA games aren't platforms and japanese games then if all games were available in Switch, X1 would sell more than they.

Most AAA games aren't shooters and sport games either (I disdain Sports games in any case, so I seldomly count them as AAA). We have only Skyrim on all three platforms for open world RPGs and no action game on all three. And Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Kingdom hearts (japanese games) aren't AAA?