Oh, hell yeah. It can and does happen. Some Nintendo fans (incl. me) don't want to accept that Nintendo hasn't made an ecosystem where you can get everything on one box. AAA are out of reach for the most part. Hardware and cost of publishing stand out as two major factors for why Switch doesn't get everything. It's great that Nintendo is on track to have a massive console, but Nintendo themselves don't seem to understand the clout that the other two platform holders have, as well as the influence third parties have on the industry today. I don't want to say Nintendo is stuck in the 80s, but they're no longer big man on campus. When Sony entered the market, third party games that were exclusive by default to NES/SNES moved to PS1. They mostly haven't come back.

But it's more profit, nonetheless.

If they were losing money on the platform, then it makes sense. But if the money and profit is there, then that's just a wasted opportunity.

Wouldn't  company rather be making X amount of money across 3 platforms instead of Y amount of money across 2 if X>Y?

B

At least they have been getting good games that need less power due to their good sales on the platform.

Oh, hell yeah. It can and does happen. Some Nintendo fans (incl. me) don't want to accept that Nintendo hasn't made an ecosystem where you can get everything on one box. AAA are out of reach for the most part. Hardware and cost of publishing stand out as two major factors for why Switch doesn't get everything. It's great that Nintendo is on track to have a massive console, but Nintendo themselves don't seem to understand the clout that the other two platform holders have, as well as the influence third parties have on the industry today. I don't want to say Nintendo is stuck in the 80s, but they're no longer big man on campus. When Sony entered the market, third party games that were exclusive by default to NES/SNES moved to PS1. They mostly haven't come back.

I'll let the people in charge of said companies tell their developers to develop for Switch.

If the Switch continues to sell and games continue to sell well on the system, they will be FORCED to make games for the switch. The development costs for a switch game is less than for the other consoles, so similar to how every company started making phone games, they will start making switch games.

Money talks more than any dev's desire for power and pushing the limits.

Edit: Tell me what do you think will happen if at a board meeting a developer says they want 50 million to make a game for the PS4 and projected sales give them a 20 million profit. Meanwhile the board looks at another game that was sold on the switch that cost only 5 million and sales gave them a profit of 20 million as well. Risk vs. reward they will not be given the choice to make what they want. They will be given a smaller budget and told to make the game Switch playable.

It's opportunity cost. It's not just a decision between Switch SKU / No Switch SKU, it's Switch SKU or doing anything else that is profitable. Even making a mobile game is a choice, and it's a choice they have because they haven't spent the money yet. Switch is also expensive to publish on. $20 for a 32 GB cart and all that. There's the opportunity cost of using development resources and the dollar cost of printing games to sell. To make the same total profit, publishers must sell about 45% more on Switch, dollar for dollar. With only Skyrim making past the 1 million mark, many AAA games will likely not do that.

Yeah, that's a good thing. It's come to my attention that Switch kinda sucks for AAA third party games. You can get them cheaper and get 60 FPS on PC or PS4/XB1 99% of the time. It also won't drop to quarter resolution when things get heavy. More games like Octopath Traveler. That's what sells. AAA games is dead to me, and dead to the AAA industry it seems. There is exactly one AAA game to break a million on Switch AFAIK: fucking Skyrim Remastered.

Even though it's a good idea on its own, the main problem with that is that in order to attain sustainable mainstream appeal, you need stable mainstream attractions. Being unique or quirky isn't always a good thing, and having unique games is hardly what Nintendo have been lacking since the beginning of their run in the industry.

But I agree on the old ports part, using aging games that millions have already played as a sales incentive is difficult, especially at full price and in a sometimes technically inferior version.