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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Why are third party games selling well on Switch?

zorg1000 on 13 August 2018

I think some people need to look up the meaning of well. It means good, not great/amazing/outstanding/wonderful/mind blowing/etc.

If 3rd party sales in general were not good we would not be seeing a diverse lineup of games from all sorts of developers/publishers releasing for Switch. It would be like Wii U which after the first year mostly just got kid/family titles from major publishers along with ok indie support.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

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zorg1000 on 13 August 2018

Number of Wii U retail games by fiscal year (North America)

1-44
2-50
3-25

Number of 3DS retail games by fiscal year (North America)

1-20

2-86

 3-77

Number of Switch retail games by fiscal year (North America)

1-10
2-95
3-53 (only 1 quarter)

Its safe to say that the situation with 3rd parties in general is much better than it was with Wii U or even 3DS.

Last edited by zorg1000 - on 13 August 2018

When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

Soundwave on 13 August 2018

The eShop buyer ship shows the Switch has a fairly diverse population of digital buyers.

Like you might expect the Switch eShop to look like this:

1. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
2. Mario Odyssey
3. Kirby
4. Mario Tennis
5. Go Vacation
6. Just Dance 2018
7. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
8. Captain Toad
9. Minecraft
10. Pokken Tournament

But actually it is like this right now:

1. Dead Cells
2. Overcooked 2
3. Okami HD
4. Minecraft
5. Hollow Knight
6. Megaman X Legacy Collection 2
7. Octopath Traveller
8. Salt and Sanctuary
9. Megaman Legacy Collection 1
10. Plague Road

Yes, I mean Overcooked 2 seems to fit the traditional "Nintendo audience" stereotype ... but Dead Cells? Octopath? Plague Road? Okami? It looks like Capcom is doing quite well for themselves too, MM Legacy Collection is really cleaning up on the Switch its be up on these charts for a while. And then a bit further down the chart you see things like Oxenfree doing well too. And this is how the eShop *usually* is also, it's not some outliner, the eShop is usually dominated by 3rd party games, not Nintendo's stuff and the 3rd party content is more diverse than you would expect. 



Barkley on 13 August 2018
Soundwave said:

The eShop buyer ship shows the Switch has a fairly diverse population of digital buyers.

Like you might expect the Switch eShop to look like this:

1. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
2. Mario Odyssey
3. Kirby
4. Mario Tennis
5. Go Vacation
6. Just Dance 2018
7. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
8. Captain Toad
9. Minecraft
10. Pokken Tournament

But actually it is like this right now:

1. Dead Cells
2. Overcooked 2
3. Okami HD
4. Minecraft
5. Hollow Knight
6. Megaman X Legacy Collection 2
7. Octopath Traveller
8. Salt and Sanctuary
9. Megaman Legacy Collection 1
10. Plague Road

Yes, I mean Overcooked 2 seems to fit the traditional "Nintendo audience" stereotype ... but Dead Cells? Octopath? Plague Road? Okami? It looks like Capcom is doing quite well for themselves too, MM Legacy Collection is really cleaning up on the Switch its be up on these charts for a while. And then a bit further down the chart you see things like Oxenfree doing well too. And this is how the eShop *usually* is also, it's not some outliner, the eShop is usually dominated by 3rd party games, not Nintendo's stuff and the 3rd party content is more diverse than you would expect. 

If we look at Rol's summary thread we can see that users on here purchase 19% of first party titles digitally, but 72% of third party titles digitally. This is the reason third-party, (mainly the smaller filesize titles) are so high on the eshop. These high digital sales don't translate over to the bigger AAA 3rd party games like Wolfenstein 2.

It's also worth noting that 4 of those games in the top 10 do not have physical releases, and Megaman's physical release requires Legacy Collection 2 download so that may contribute to people ignoring physical and going for digital instead.

Last edited by Barkley - on 13 August 2018

Miyamotoo on 13 August 2018
potato_hamster said:
Miyamotoo said:

How!? With point that if Switch has same install base like XB1 sales of game would be even better, but in any case we going in direction when Switch and XB1 will have similar install base.

How do you know these games would sell better if the install base was bigger?

For example. Take the NBA 2K games on PS4.

NBA 2K16: 3.97M
NBA 2K17: 3.51M (install base increased by 21 million)
NBA 2K18: 3.19M (install base increased by over 10 million so far this year)

By your logic should the sales of these games increased year over year based on the increased install base, instead of decreasing?

You dont make sense, offcourse that one same game will sell more on one platform with 30m than on same platform with install base with 20m, every Switch game will have better sales when Switch install base is bigger compared to current numbers, also offcourse that every game on XB1/PS4/Switch/3DS has bigger sales because increased install base than it had last year.

Your comparision also dont make sense, first you comparing difrent games and second 2K16 was two years more in sale than 2K17 and one year more than 2K18, also 2K17 was one year longer in sale than 2K18.

 

potato_hamster said: 
zorg1000 said: 

What exactly are you even arguing about? We have had multiple developers/publishers state they are very happy with their games sales on Switch which is much better than using arbitrary numbers to decide if a game has sold well.

If 3rd party games werent selling well than support would be shrinking, not growing like it is from all types of devs.

You can find multiple third party developers publishers that are/were very happy with their game sales on Vita, Wii U, and pretty much every platform that has allowed developers to develop low budget games at low prices. Which means this argument gives zero credibility to the notion that "third party games are selling well on Switch". There's always going to be developers and publishers that are happy with the sales of games on 

Well it's growing for some devs, while holding steady one other devs, and declining for some other devs. You're only focusing on the developers where support is growing and acting like it represents the average third party developer.

Actually you will very hard find statments that publishers were very happy with their game sales on Vita and espacily Wii U, while with Switch have regulary that kind of statements even in second year, not to mentione that Wii U left without 3rd party in first year and Vita little longer, while Switch is getting increased support.

 

Also, its not point only about statments, you also have sales numbers for plenty of games where games sold better on Switch compared to XB1 or where Switch version of some games sold best. Also look at increasing announcements from 3rd parties for Switch, and numbers of relased games for Switch until now.

Last edited by Miyamotoo - on 13 August 2018

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Soundwave on 13 August 2018
Barkley said:
Soundwave said:

The eShop buyer ship shows the Switch has a fairly diverse population of digital buyers.

Like you might expect the Switch eShop to look like this:

1. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
2. Mario Odyssey
3. Kirby
4. Mario Tennis
5. Go Vacation
6. Just Dance 2018
7. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
8. Captain Toad
9. Minecraft
10. Pokken Tournament

But actually it is like this right now:

1. Dead Cells
2. Overcooked 2
3. Okami HD
4. Minecraft
5. Hollow Knight
6. Megaman X Legacy Collection 2
7. Octopath Traveller
8. Salt and Sanctuary
9. Megaman Legacy Collection 1
10. Plague Road

Yes, I mean Overcooked 2 seems to fit the traditional "Nintendo audience" stereotype ... but Dead Cells? Octopath? Plague Road? Okami? It looks like Capcom is doing quite well for themselves too, MM Legacy Collection is really cleaning up on the Switch its be up on these charts for a while. And then a bit further down the chart you see things like Oxenfree doing well too. And this is how the eShop *usually* is also, it's not some outliner, the eShop is usually dominated by 3rd party games, not Nintendo's stuff and the 3rd party content is more diverse than you would expect. 

If we look at Rol's summary thread we can see that users on here purchase 19% of first party titles digitally, but 72% of third party titles digitally. This is the reason third-party, (mainly the smaller filesize titles) are so high on the eshop. These high digital sales don't translate over to the bigger AAA 3rd party games like Wolfenstein 2.

It's also worth noting that 4 of those games in the top 10 do not have physical releases, and Megaman's physical release requires Legacy Collection 2 download so that may contribute to people ignoring physical and going for digital instead.

It still shows people are willing to try/buy a more diverse offering of Switch software, we've also seen from Nintendo's reports that many of these games are selling very well like Hollow Knight. There have been spikes for things like FIFA on the eShop and Octopath has done really well there too. 

Maybe it is also time to look at the "every game must be retail + $59.99 MSRP" layout as old and tired, because it looks to me like plenty of people are willing to buy non-Nintendo content on the Switch, not everything needs to be a $60 game, though Octopath shows that can work too. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 13 August 2018

Barkley on 13 August 2018
Soundwave said:
Barkley said:

If we look at Rol's summary thread we can see that users on here purchase 19% of first party titles digitally, but 72% of third party titles digitally. This is the reason third-party, (mainly the smaller filesize titles) are so high on the eshop. These high digital sales don't translate over to the bigger AAA 3rd party games like Wolfenstein 2.

It's also worth noting that 4 of those games in the top 10 do not have physical releases, and Megaman's physical release requires Legacy Collection 2 download so that may contribute to people ignoring physical and going for digital instead.

It still shows people are willing to try/buy a more diverse offering of Switch software, we've also seen from Nintendo's reports that many of these games are selling very well like Hollow Knight. There have been spikes for things like FIFA on the eShop and Octopath has done really well there too. 

I don't think anyone has questioned the sale of indie games though. When people say third party games aren't selling well, they are generally referring to Western AAA games. Not Indies or Japanese titles. Small digital titles do very well on the Switch.



Soundwave on 13 August 2018
Barkley said:
Soundwave said:

It still shows people are willing to try/buy a more diverse offering of Switch software, we've also seen from Nintendo's reports that many of these games are selling very well like Hollow Knight. There have been spikes for things like FIFA on the eShop and Octopath has done really well there too. 

I don't think anyone has questioned the sale of indie games though. When people say third party games aren't selling well, they are generally referring to Western AAA games. Not Indies or Japanese titles. Small digital titles do very well on the Switch.

The sales of those games show the system is having success with a broader audience and there is content that can appeal to the Switch crowd it doesn't all have to be Mario + Pokemon + casual games. 

We don't have a large enough sample size of Western AAA games. I'd bet a lot of money if you put GTA or Call of Duty on Switch, it would probably sell quite well. Skyrim seems to have done decent (probably north of 500k), same with FIFA, the two most notable Switch third party exclusives are arguably Octopath and Bomberman R (1 year exclusive) ... both are gonna top 1 million in sales. 2/2 is not bad. 

Even with Nintendo published stuff we see Xenoblade is probably going to cruise past 1.5 million en route to 2 million+ most likely. Bayonetta 2's port on Switch outsold the Wii U version in 9 short weeks and is likely past 400k. If there's a market for Xenoblade and Bayonetta on this thing ... there's going to be a market for different kinds of third party games. 

Switch's user demographics are also very clear -- overwhelmingly 16+ in age with the vast majority being adults. 



Miyamotoo on 13 August 2018
Barkley said:
Soundwave said:

It still shows people are willing to try/buy a more diverse offering of Switch software, we've also seen from Nintendo's reports that many of these games are selling very well like Hollow Knight. There have been spikes for things like FIFA on the eShop and Octopath has done really well there too. 

I don't think anyone has questioned the sale of indie games though. When people say third party games aren't selling well, they are generally referring to Western AAA games. Not Indies or Japanese titles. Small digital titles do very well on the Switch.

But they are wrong, Switch dont have big number of AAA 3rd party games but most of those 3rd party games that are on system selling/sold quite well, games like Skyrim, Fifa, NBA, Doom, Dragon Ball, Sonic, Crash, RE, Octopath Traveler...sold/selling quite well on Switch.



Barkley on 13 August 2018
Miyamotoo said:
Barkley said:

I don't think anyone has questioned the sale of indie games though. When people say third party games aren't selling well, they are generally referring to Western AAA games. Not Indies or Japanese titles. Small digital titles do very well on the Switch.

But they are wrong, Switch dont have big number of AAA 3rd party games but most of those 3rd party games that are on system selling/sold quite well, games like Skyrim, Fifa, NBA, Doom, Dragon Ball, Sonic, Crash, RE, Octopath Traveler...sold/selling quite well on Switch.

4 of the games you listed there are not Western...  and I would say some of those games didn't exactly sell "well" either. It's not a concrete term so everyone has there own ideas. But tbh I wouldn't say Doom with 0.35m "Sold Well", or NBA with 0.38m "Sold Well".

"Well" is better than "Ok" which is better than "Acceptable", I would probably classify Doom as "Acceptable."

But tbh I think it's just going to get worse, we'll see. But I feel like the next Fifa will sell worse on Switch than the current. The "New console, must buy everything!" affect is wearing off, and the amount of games to choose from is increasing.