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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Why is the Switch still not getting big games from 3rd parties? October edition

Soundwave said:
Miyamotoo said:

Yeah, like couple generations old phones. :)  You can bet that people would very upset if Pro releases in 1-2 years and than you have bunch games that dont work on older Switch.

Yeah, but after iPhone 6 we had iPhone 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, 7, 7 Plus, SE, 8, 8 Plus, X and now XS, XS Max and XR. I mean of course after some point older hardware will not support new games, but in case of Switch we probably talking about next generation of Switch, not about Switch Pro or some other revision of current Switch.

I think Switch could become more like the smartphone model. Not that many upgrades (yearly) obviously, but every 3 years rather than a hard reset back to 0 every 5-6 years. 

To be honest from a business POV, it's kind of stupid to have a successful product and then willingly go start at 0 again every 5-6 years and risk the next go around being no where near as successful. No other business would accept that kind of business model. 

Yeah, but some of those ugprades will be smaller while some bigger, and it big question how Nintendo will market and name those upgrades. Also we dont talk only about upgrades, we also talking abou low priced option similar like having 2DS with 3DS family.

They will not start from 0 in any case, if in 6 years we have Switch 2, that doesnt mean they going from 0, they will continue using Nvidia+ARM most likely, but at one point they will start supporting oldest hardware with new games.



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Miyamotoo said:
DonFerrari said:

Now put how much they invested on the port and waiting on those, plus missed revenue from delaying it plus not selling the stuff on the online portion... that certainly is quite considerable. As also was said if they were really scarred of the price for the cartridge, download would be a solution or even releasing the game for higher pricetag. Those were done in recent past without much hassle or backlash considering the profit made. I find it hard to believe they have put all the work and stopped with it finished due to it. If you said they didn't even start developing because they will wait for better margins it would make more sense.

Maybe from start they were targeting to release game when 32GB carts are cheaper or when 64GB carts arives on market. Maybe game take more than 32GB so they will have download even with 32GB cart, and using 16GB and have download of 20GB+ would be too much. They cant realy sell game for $70. We dont know details we can only take a guess, but fact is that Switch carts cost more than BD disks for PS4/XB1 espacily when we talking about bigger cart sizes (going from 8GB) and that Switch has capacity problem, so its logical to assume that those things are problem for some 3rd parties.

Why wouldn't the biggest SW seller of the gen (100M games sold) be able to price their game at 70USD? Do Nintendo forbid it? I'm pretty much sure I can find at least one game or edition that cost 70USD. There is very little difference between having a 32Cart and downloading 5GB and 16Cart and downloading 20GB (we even have silly cases on Xbox where even though you bought the game on a 50GB BD you had a day one patch sized 100GB), having to download at all is enough hassle, and if people accepted paying over 60USD for a cartridge game that demanded download for less grandious games I bet they would also buy GTA V even if that was the case. The size may be a problem to some, but you are speculating that it is for R*. You have 0 evidence that the game is ready and they pulled off to wait for pricecut on the cart. We have gave you at least 4 solutions (smaller margin covered by in-game purchase, higher price, download part, nintendo eat some cost, full digital) that are better than not making any money by not releasing and you just refuse to accept because you believe in "insiders".

Also R* could very well make the Switch version closer to Xbox360 version and keep game size to 16-32GB if they so much wished.

To me it seems more like you are trying to find reasoning to your defense than it really being true.

This are things that known and trusted insiders from Resetera exactly said on this matter:

Vern:

"Biggest problem for 3rd parties from what I’ve heard is cartridge size availability and cost for them, and that has limited some 3p releases and even caused cancellation/delay of others. Until Nintendo gets that under control or subsidizes some bigger games then don’t expect the biggest games. You still need patience. I’d love to be wrong on this but that’s what I’ve heard from multiple sources. Would be great for some journalists or insiders to investigate and let everyone know what’s the current state of the carts."

 

Benji:

"Yes. There are 3rd party games not on the system partially because of this"

"I'm not theorizing here. I know it to be accurate. Some very big games aren't on the platform partially due to cart cost"

"Main issue is this. If you are a 3rd party and you are looking at putting a game on Switch, and you are running into some technical issues as is and then you look at losing a LARGE chunk of your physical revenue due to prohibitively expensive carts you just say nah"

"I dont think people realize how expensive the larger scale Switch carts are. From a publisher perspective its INSANE"

"Some of these titles very well may still happen. 2 of the (VERY) big projects I've heard of are more in up and down limbo than outright 100% canceled. Hopefully things work out"

 

NateDrake:

"Power is on the lower end of concerns from third parties. Game cart size capacity is a far bigger issue that needs to be solved for third party support, as are software sale performance."

"32GB carts are available now but are extremely expensive. 64GB carts next yr will help a bit but, again, are expensive."

"I can say it is on the lower end of concern, because cart size and software sales are bigger issues right now. Games have been cancelled for Switch due to the limitations and cost of carts. Other games have been shelved because software sales. Power isn't the issue."

"Nintendo isn't going to bite the bullet for every third party company that wants to use larger carts. If the costs are $15-$20 higher to use a 32GB cart over an 8GB cart, that's a lot of money. Either you buy the game at retail for $80 or you DL a portion of the game."

"These aren't my concerns. They are concerns I've heard from developers contacts I have. Numerous projects are not coming to Switch because cart size limitations and cost. Games that can easily run on the platform are being skipped for those reasons."

 

TheRaidenPT (to be fair I dont know who this guy is, he just said what he heard):

"A couple of developers I know haven't released their games on Switch either due to the amount of costs Nintendo proposed to the publisher.

"So it's not really surprising for me, I have been hearing the cart cost for quite some time now".

https://www.resetera.com/threads/are-carts-hindering-switch-reach-in-the-same-way-it-did-with-n64.36840/page-5

None of the posts you copied talks about R*, they also aren't ANY developer. So you are just blowing steam to cover up.

potato_hamster said:
DonFerrari said:

Now put how much they invested on the port and waiting on those, plus missed revenue from delaying it plus not selling the stuff on the online portion... that certainly is quite considerable. As also was said if they were really scarred of the price for the cartridge, download would be a solution or even releasing the game for higher pricetag. Those were done in recent past without much hassle or backlash considering the profit made. I find it hard to believe they have put all the work and stopped with it finished due to it. If you said they didn't even start developing because they will wait for better margins it would make more sense.

Right? Rockstar would have known the price of Switch prices before they even began serious development for the game. They would have known what the licensing/manufacturing costs would be before they ever greenlit a serious investment. There's a 0% chance that Rockstar was blindsided by cartridge cost information from Nintendo, and decided to cancel/shelve a project based on this cost information during development.

Considering how much competence they have in releasing their games and profiting I very much doubt they would start a project with the uncertainty of being able to release or not profit.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

DonFerrari said:
Miyamotoo said:

Maybe from start they were targeting to release game when 32GB carts are cheaper or when 64GB carts arives on market. Maybe game take more than 32GB so they will have download even with 32GB cart, and using 16GB and have download of 20GB+ would be too much. They cant realy sell game for $70. We dont know details we can only take a guess, but fact is that Switch carts cost more than BD disks for PS4/XB1 espacily when we talking about bigger cart sizes (going from 8GB) and that Switch has capacity problem, so its logical to assume that those things are problem for some 3rd parties.

Why wouldn't the biggest SW seller of the gen (100M games sold) be able to price their game at 70USD? Do Nintendo forbid it? I'm pretty much sure I can find at least one game or edition that cost 70USD. There is very little difference between having a 32Cart and downloading 5GB and 16Cart and downloading 20GB (we even have silly cases on Xbox where even though you bought the game on a 50GB BD you had a day one patch sized 100GB), having to download at all is enough hassle, and if people accepted paying over 60USD for a cartridge game that demanded download for less grandious games I bet they would also buy GTA V even if that was the case. The size may be a problem to some, but you are speculating that it is for R*. You have 0 evidence that the game is ready and they pulled off to wait for pricecut on the cart. We have gave you at least 4 solutions (smaller margin covered by in-game purchase, higher price, download part, nintendo eat some cost, full digital) that are better than not making any money by not releasing and you just refuse to accept because you believe in "insiders".

Also R* could very well make the Switch version closer to Xbox360 version and keep game size to 16-32GB if they so much wished.

To me it seems more like you are trying to find reasoning to your defense than it really being true.

This are things that known and trusted insiders from Resetera exactly said on this matter:

Vern:

"Biggest problem for 3rd parties from what I’ve heard is cartridge size availability and cost for them, and that has limited some 3p releases and even caused cancellation/delay of others. Until Nintendo gets that under control or subsidizes some bigger games then don’t expect the biggest games. You still need patience. I’d love to be wrong on this but that’s what I’ve heard from multiple sources. Would be great for some journalists or insiders to investigate and let everyone know what’s the current state of the carts."

 

Benji:

"Yes. There are 3rd party games not on the system partially because of this"

"I'm not theorizing here. I know it to be accurate. Some very big games aren't on the platform partially due to cart cost"

"Main issue is this. If you are a 3rd party and you are looking at putting a game on Switch, and you are running into some technical issues as is and then you look at losing a LARGE chunk of your physical revenue due to prohibitively expensive carts you just say nah"

"I dont think people realize how expensive the larger scale Switch carts are. From a publisher perspective its INSANE"

"Some of these titles very well may still happen. 2 of the (VERY) big projects I've heard of are more in up and down limbo than outright 100% canceled. Hopefully things work out"

 

NateDrake:

"Power is on the lower end of concerns from third parties. Game cart size capacity is a far bigger issue that needs to be solved for third party support, as are software sale performance."

"32GB carts are available now but are extremely expensive. 64GB carts next yr will help a bit but, again, are expensive."

"I can say it is on the lower end of concern, because cart size and software sales are bigger issues right now. Games have been cancelled for Switch due to the limitations and cost of carts. Other games have been shelved because software sales. Power isn't the issue."

"Nintendo isn't going to bite the bullet for every third party company that wants to use larger carts. If the costs are $15-$20 higher to use a 32GB cart over an 8GB cart, that's a lot of money. Either you buy the game at retail for $80 or you DL a portion of the game."

"These aren't my concerns. They are concerns I've heard from developers contacts I have. Numerous projects are not coming to Switch because cart size limitations and cost. Games that can easily run on the platform are being skipped for those reasons."

 

TheRaidenPT (to be fair I dont know who this guy is, he just said what he heard):

"A couple of developers I know haven't released their games on Switch either due to the amount of costs Nintendo proposed to the publisher.

"So it's not really surprising for me, I have been hearing the cart cost for quite some time now".

https://www.resetera.com/threads/are-carts-hindering-switch-reach-in-the-same-way-it-did-with-n64.36840/page-5

None of the posts you copied talks about R*, they also aren't ANY developer. So you are just blowing steam to cover up.

potato_hamster said:

Right? Rockstar would have known the price of Switch prices before they even began serious development for the game. They would have known what the licensing/manufacturing costs would be before they ever greenlit a serious investment. There's a 0% chance that Rockstar was blindsided by cartridge cost information from Nintendo, and decided to cancel/shelve a project based on this cost information during development.

Considering how much competence they have in releasing their games and profiting I very much doubt they would start a project with the uncertainty of being able to release or not profit.

Exactly. Nor do I think they would be willing to sit on it for years considering GTAV is now 5 years old, and we're probably looking at GTA VI within the next the next couple years.



DonFerrari said:
Miyamotoo said:

Maybe from start they were targeting to release game when 32GB carts are cheaper or when 64GB carts arives on market. Maybe game take more than 32GB so they will have download even with 32GB cart, and using 16GB and have download of 20GB+ would be too much. They cant realy sell game for $70. We dont know details we can only take a guess, but fact is that Switch carts cost more than BD disks for PS4/XB1 espacily when we talking about bigger cart sizes (going from 8GB) and that Switch has capacity problem, so its logical to assume that those things are problem for some 3rd parties.

Why wouldn't the biggest SW seller of the gen (100M games sold) be able to price their game at 70USD? Do Nintendo forbid it? I'm pretty much sure I can find at least one game or edition that cost 70USD. There is very little difference between having a 32Cart and downloading 5GB and 16Cart and downloading 20GB (we even have silly cases on Xbox where even though you bought the game on a 50GB BD you had a day one patch sized 100GB), having to download at all is enough hassle, and if people accepted paying over 60USD for a cartridge game that demanded download for less grandious games I bet they would also buy GTA V even if that was the case. The size may be a problem to some, but you are speculating that it is for R*. You have 0 evidence that the game is ready and they pulled off to wait for pricecut on the cart. We have gave you at least 4 solutions (smaller margin covered by in-game purchase, higher price, download part, nintendo eat some cost, full digital) that are better than not making any money by not releasing and you just refuse to accept because you believe in "insiders".

Also R* could very well make the Switch version closer to Xbox360 version and keep game size to 16-32GB if they so much wished.

To me it seems more like you are trying to find reasoning to your defense than it really being true.

This are things that known and trusted insiders from Resetera exactly said on this matter:

Vern:

"Biggest problem for 3rd parties from what I’ve heard is cartridge size availability and cost for them, and that has limited some 3p releases and even caused cancellation/delay of others. Until Nintendo gets that under control or subsidizes some bigger games then don’t expect the biggest games. You still need patience. I’d love to be wrong on this but that’s what I’ve heard from multiple sources. Would be great for some journalists or insiders to investigate and let everyone know what’s the current state of the carts."

 

Benji:

"Yes. There are 3rd party games not on the system partially because of this"

"I'm not theorizing here. I know it to be accurate. Some very big games aren't on the platform partially due to cart cost"

"Main issue is this. If you are a 3rd party and you are looking at putting a game on Switch, and you are running into some technical issues as is and then you look at losing a LARGE chunk of your physical revenue due to prohibitively expensive carts you just say nah"

"I dont think people realize how expensive the larger scale Switch carts are. From a publisher perspective its INSANE"

"Some of these titles very well may still happen. 2 of the (VERY) big projects I've heard of are more in up and down limbo than outright 100% canceled. Hopefully things work out"

 

NateDrake:

"Power is on the lower end of concerns from third parties. Game cart size capacity is a far bigger issue that needs to be solved for third party support, as are software sale performance."

"32GB carts are available now but are extremely expensive. 64GB carts next yr will help a bit but, again, are expensive."

"I can say it is on the lower end of concern, because cart size and software sales are bigger issues right now. Games have been cancelled for Switch due to the limitations and cost of carts. Other games have been shelved because software sales. Power isn't the issue."

"Nintendo isn't going to bite the bullet for every third party company that wants to use larger carts. If the costs are $15-$20 higher to use a 32GB cart over an 8GB cart, that's a lot of money. Either you buy the game at retail for $80 or you DL a portion of the game."

"These aren't my concerns. They are concerns I've heard from developers contacts I have. Numerous projects are not coming to Switch because cart size limitations and cost. Games that can easily run on the platform are being skipped for those reasons."

 

TheRaidenPT (to be fair I dont know who this guy is, he just said what he heard):

"A couple of developers I know haven't released their games on Switch either due to the amount of costs Nintendo proposed to the publisher.

"So it's not really surprising for me, I have been hearing the cart cost for quite some time now".

https://www.resetera.com/threads/are-carts-hindering-switch-reach-in-the-same-way-it-did-with-n64.36840/page-5

None of the posts you copied talks about R*, they also aren't ANY developer. So you are just blowing steam to cover up.

 

Because highest price point on market was always $60 if we dont count some kind of special editions/steal books and similar. No one would make price point of $70 if highest point for any game on market is $60, not Nintendo, R* or any one else. No its not little difference between downloading 5GB and 20GB, especially when Switch has internal memory of around 25GB for user. Yeah, I speculating about GTAV also, game was hinted before for Switch and its hinted it's one of those game this problem effect on it also. I also gave answers on all those 4 solutions why maybe why they are not using those solution or they are not good solutions (and $70 price point is easily worst one). Dont act like you talking about facts, because you don't, like I said, we don't know exact details, we can only guess and speculate, while clear fact is that Switch carts cost more than BD disks for PS4/XB1 espacily when we talking about bigger cart sizes (going from 8GB) and that Switch has capacity problem, so its logical to assume that those things are problem for some 3rd parties.

They could, but maybe they want, you don't know that, Switch running every last gen at higher resolution than PS3/360, and game had quite a few updates from period of PS3/360 release.

I dont defending anything, I am very open mind, I saying nothing is certain, while you are one that to refuse to believe that this cart problem maybe effecting GTAV also.

 

No one said they are developers, no one talking about any specific game, they dont want to leak things that can make them in trouble or their sources, but some of them hinted that some of those games are GTAV and CoD. I dont blowing or covering anuthing, I just gave you what they exactly said to have better picture about this problem, you are free to belive in whatever you want.

Last edited by Miyamotoo - on 26 October 2018

DonFerrari said:
Miyamotoo said:
On Resetera, few known insiders, said that that some big 3rd party games are on hold and some even cancelled because price/availability of bigger Switch carts,
it's definitely that problem affecting in some degree on 3rd party support for Switch. GTAV and CoD are games that were heavily hinted like some examples.

Saying that WSJ at end of last year reported that 64GB Switch carts are coming in 2019. and probably in same time prices of 32GB and 16GB carts will go down (apparently only one game until now used 32GB cart), so we should have more big 3rd party games next year.
WSJ also last year reported that big 3rd party Japanese games will start showing in 2019. because of time when work on them started (at end of 2017. or early 2018.).

Strange since some months ago there were people swearing that the cartridges weren't more expensive than BD (like couple dollars difference)

Dunno who said that. But actual developers and porters talk about the cartridges as problem. Here Abstraction Games about the port of Ark Survival to the Switch:

He continues: "Performance is not really the issue. The issue instead is in the size of carts. The 32GB carts are expensive, you shouldn't be wanting to do that. So we need to fit everything on 16GB, whereas the standard game on PS4 is much, much larger. It's a crazy ratio we're talking about."

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-03-21-how-they-got-ark-survival-evolved-working-on-switch



3DS-FC: 4511-1768-7903 (Mii-Name: Mnementh), Nintendo-Network-ID: Mnementh, Switch: SW-7706-3819-9381 (Mnementh)

my greatest games: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

10 years greatest game event!

bets: [peak year] [+], [1], [2], [3], [4]

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fatslob-:O said:
1. High lead-up times and a long development pipeline means AAA games in particular won't manifest very quickly. It took at least 2 years for most AAA game studios to change their baseline target to current generation hardware so who knows when Switch will catch on to the next release cycles ...

2. Tegra X1 is a low performance chip. By comparison home consoles have higher performance chips and it was specifically the reason why they were successful early in the generation with cross generation projects since doing a rough port meant an IMMEDIATE performance uplift. The same can not be said when porting current generation projects to the Switch along with the fact programmers have to deal with a different hardware architecture such as the Nvidia CPU/GPU ...

3. Switch has a different audience expectations and we can take a look at Japan for an example where many smaller projects which have development conditions sympathetic to the Switch fare far worse in terms of sales performance compared to PS4 ...

The problems with the Switch are currently 3 fold and it's probably not going to get any better for the Switch from this point onward before it get's worse when a new generation is less than 3 years away ... (even smaller projects some of which could target last generation hardware are starting to capitalize on the ubiquitous nature of current generation hardware and that can potentially put the Switch in further jeopardy)

This is mostly right. I agree that western high-level AAA-productions are also unlikely in the future. But mid-tier and smaller games are possible. And Switch is targeted by games usually not on console. It gets a lot of mobile ports. Also a lot of stuff usually on PC makes it's way to Switch, because of the possible mobility the game gains and because of multiple input-methods. The input-methods are the reason for Civilization as a bigger example of one such game. I think Switch can and will thrive on these games, different genres and games than the usual western mostly action and shooter AAA-games.



3DS-FC: 4511-1768-7903 (Mii-Name: Mnementh), Nintendo-Network-ID: Mnementh, Switch: SW-7706-3819-9381 (Mnementh)

my greatest games: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

10 years greatest game event!

bets: [peak year] [+], [1], [2], [3], [4]

Miyamotoo said:
DonFerrari said:

None of the posts you copied talks about R*, they also aren't ANY developer. So you are just blowing steam to cover up.

Because highest price point on market was always $60 if we dont count some kind of special editions/steal books and similar. No one would make price point of $70 if highest point for any game on market is $60, not Nintendo, R* or any one else. No its not little difference between downloading 5GB and 20GB, especially when Switch has internal memory of around 25GB for user. Yeah, I speculating about GTAV also, game was hinted before for Switch and its hinted it's one of those game this problem effect on it also. I also gave answers on all those 4 solutions why maybe why they are not using those solution or they are not good solutions (and $70 price point is easily worst one). Dont act like you talking about facts, because you don't, like I said, we don't know exact details, we can only guess and speculate, while clear fact is that Switch carts cost more than BD disks for PS4/XB1 espacily when we talking about bigger cart sizes (going from 8GB) and that Switch has capacity problem, so its logical to assume that those things are problem for some 3rd parties.

They could, but maybe they want, you don't know that, Switch running every last gen at higher resolution than PS3/360, and game had quite a few updates from period of PS3/360 release.

I dont defending anything, I am very open mind, I saying nothing is certain, while you are one that to refuse to believe that this cart problem maybe effecting GTAV also.

 

No one said they are developers, no one talking about any specific game, they dont want to leak things that can make them in trouble or their sources, but some of them hinted that some of those games are GTAV and CoD. I dont blowing or covering anuthing, I just gave you what they exactly said to have better picture about this problem, you are free to belive in whatever you want.

So you swear there is no game on Nintendo platforms that have retailed for over 60 USD since Wii? And that it's impossible anyone would launch it for over 60?

If i'm not wrong you can have memory card to expand your memory and also 25GB is enough to download a 20GB game (Did you complain on WiiU for all those games that were bigger in size than the full HD of some WiiU versions - and that not even being a portable?) And you really can manage your drive and only keep the game you are playing (but I'm sure some people will claim they like to have 10 games installed or played at the same time for whatever reason). The fact is, if you need to download you can't really just insert the game and play so whatever the side of the download (and it was again Nintendo decision on the size of their internal drive, so are you going to blame Nintendo for it or reason out why they had to do this and shift the problem to developers?).

Game was hinted by who? Do we have any announcement made by Nintendo or R*?

Sure I'm not claiming they are facts. But you are the one trying to pass what "credible insiders" said as some type of fact even by indirect association of what they said. The blowing is about you trying to cover all the holes with suppositions.

Let's suppose GTAV could sell 5M units on Switch, and use your figure of 10USD additional cost for the cartridge (50M cost). So instead of the regular 27 USD per copy the publisher would get https://kotaku.com/5479698/what-your-60-really-buys they are only getting 17USD per copy or 85M revenue (which is much more than 0).

"And that's a sea change in our business, and recurrent consumer spending is 42% of our net bookings in the quarter," he continued. "It's been transformative for us and the only reason it's transformative for us is because it's transformative to our consumers. (source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-11-08-take-two-wants-recurrent-consumer-spending-from-every-title-wont-always-be-microtransactions ).

And that is of a $443.6 million revenue quarter. With GTAV being the biggest bringer. So let's say that makes 170M on ingame purchase and that only half of it are for GTA V giving 85M (I believe is more). With GTA having about 100M owners we could say that each 1M owner brings in 0.85M in revenue per quarter. So delaying a game for 2 years would mean about 6.8M per 1M user missed or on 5M users that would mean 34M.

Also considering the longer they take to release the game the closer GTA VI will be to launch, so it could take 1, 2 or even more millions from sale.

Plus if we take in count the money they already invested on the porting (unfortunately we don't know how much was expend) and like 5% interest ratio per year (probably more on cost of opportunity).

So we can easily see the "loss" of 50M in profit for selling on lower margin (let's pretend they aren't selling for much less on the platforms, for more than 10USD difference) would be either covered on other revenues or the loses on sales (total volume or ingame) and interest ratio would actually make a situation that it doesn't make much sense to hold the game.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Mnementh said:
DonFerrari said:

Strange since some months ago there were people swearing that the cartridges weren't more expensive than BD (like couple dollars difference)

Dunno who said that. But actual developers and porters talk about the cartridges as problem. Here Abstraction Games about the port of Ark Survival to the Switch:

He continues: "Performance is not really the issue. The issue instead is in the size of carts. The 32GB carts are expensive, you shouldn't be wanting to do that. So we need to fit everything on 16GB, whereas the standard game on PS4 is much, much larger. It's a crazy ratio we're talking about."

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-03-21-how-they-got-ark-survival-evolved-working-on-switch

Thanks for the link.  That is an interesting article. 

I also found this statement interesting:
"Switch is not as powerful as a PS4 or Xbox One. Everyone knows that," Egas says. "Having said that, the difference isn't as big as the general perception would have you believe."

When you combine that idea with your quote above, then it seems like a lot more games are going to be ported to the Switch.  However the cost of 32GB carts needs to come down first.  But performance isn't the issue, and when the cost of carts comes down then it won't be much of an issue either.  Obviously, some games like RDR2 are just ginormous and will never come to Switch.  But he seems to indicate in that article that there are a lot of games in the 16GB-32GB size range that could be ported over.

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 26 October 2018

The_Liquid_Laser said:
Mnementh said:

Dunno who said that. But actual developers and porters talk about the cartridges as problem. Here Abstraction Games about the port of Ark Survival to the Switch:

He continues: "Performance is not really the issue. The issue instead is in the size of carts. The 32GB carts are expensive, you shouldn't be wanting to do that. So we need to fit everything on 16GB, whereas the standard game on PS4 is much, much larger. It's a crazy ratio we're talking about."

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-03-21-how-they-got-ark-survival-evolved-working-on-switch

Thanks for the link.  That is an interesting article. 

I also found this statement interesting:
"Switch is not as powerful as a PS4 or Xbox One. Everyone knows that," Egas says. "Having said that, the difference isn't as big as the general perception would have you believe."

When you combine that idea with your quote above, then it seems like a lot more games are going to be ported to the Switch.  However the cost of 32GB carts needs to come down first.  But performance isn't the issue, and when the cost of carts comes down then it won't be much of an issue either.  Obviously, some games like RDR2 are just ginormous and will never come to Switch.  But he seems to indicate in that article that there are a lot of games in the 16GB-32GB size range that could be ported over.

Yeah. It is a bit dissapointing, that in 2017 the cartridge was still so problematic. Yes, lesser memory, but I didn't expect it to be this big a problem still. But yeah, this explains why so many games go the additional download needed route.



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DonFerrari said:
Miyamotoo said:

Because highest price point on market was always $60 if we dont count some kind of special editions/steal books and similar. No one would make price point of $70 if highest point for any game on market is $60, not Nintendo, R* or any one else. No its not little difference between downloading 5GB and 20GB, especially when Switch has internal memory of around 25GB for user. Yeah, I speculating about GTAV also, game was hinted before for Switch and its hinted it's one of those game this problem effect on it also. I also gave answers on all those 4 solutions why maybe why they are not using those solution or they are not good solutions (and $70 price point is easily worst one). Dont act like you talking about facts, because you don't, like I said, we don't know exact details, we can only guess and speculate, while clear fact is that Switch carts cost more than BD disks for PS4/XB1 espacily when we talking about bigger cart sizes (going from 8GB) and that Switch has capacity problem, so its logical to assume that those things are problem for some 3rd parties.

They could, but maybe they want, you don't know that, Switch running every last gen at higher resolution than PS3/360, and game had quite a few updates from period of PS3/360 release.

I dont defending anything, I am very open mind, I saying nothing is certain, while you are one that to refuse to believe that this cart problem maybe effecting GTAV also.

 

No one said they are developers, no one talking about any specific game, they dont want to leak things that can make them in trouble or their sources, but some of them hinted that some of those games are GTAV and CoD. I dont blowing or covering anuthing, I just gave you what they exactly said to have better picture about this problem, you are free to belive in whatever you want.

So you swear there is no game on Nintendo platforms that have retailed for over 60 USD since Wii? And that it's impossible anyone would launch it for over 60?

If i'm not wrong you can have memory card to expand your memory and also 25GB is enough to download a 20GB game (Did you complain on WiiU for all those games that were bigger in size than the full HD of some WiiU versions - and that not even being a portable?) And you really can manage your drive and only keep the game you are playing (but I'm sure some people will claim they like to have 10 games installed or played at the same time for whatever reason). The fact is, if you need to download you can't really just insert the game and play so whatever the side of the download (and it was again Nintendo decision on the size of their internal drive, so are you going to blame Nintendo for it or reason out why they had to do this and shift the problem to developers?).

Game was hinted by who? Do we have any announcement made by Nintendo or R*?

Sure I'm not claiming they are facts. But you are the one trying to pass what "credible insiders" said as some type of fact even by indirect association of what they said. The blowing is about you trying to cover all the holes with suppositions.

Let's suppose GTAV could sell 5M units on Switch, and use your figure of 10USD additional cost for the cartridge (50M cost). So instead of the regular 27 USD per copy the publisher would get https://kotaku.com/5479698/what-your-60-really-buys they are only getting 17USD per copy or 85M revenue (which is much more than 0).

"And that's a sea change in our business, and recurrent consumer spending is 42% of our net bookings in the quarter," he continued. "It's been transformative for us and the only reason it's transformative for us is because it's transformative to our consumers. (source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-11-08-take-two-wants-recurrent-consumer-spending-from-every-title-wont-always-be-microtransactions ).

And that is of a $443.6 million revenue quarter. With GTAV being the biggest bringer. So let's say that makes 170M on ingame purchase and that only half of it are for GTA V giving 85M (I believe is more). With GTA having about 100M owners we could say that each 1M owner brings in 0.85M in revenue per quarter. So delaying a game for 2 years would mean about 6.8M per 1M user missed or on 5M users that would mean 34M.

Also considering the longer they take to release the game the closer GTA VI will be to launch, so it could take 1, 2 or even more millions from sale.

Plus if we take in count the money they already invested on the porting (unfortunately we don't know how much was expend) and like 5% interest ratio per year (probably more on cost of opportunity).

So we can easily see the "loss" of 50M in profit for selling on lower margin (let's pretend they aren't selling for much less on the platforms, for more than 10USD difference) would be either covered on other revenues or the loses on sales (total volume or ingame) and interest ratio would actually make a situation that it doesn't make much sense to hold the game.

Swear? Look at price point of Switch, PS4, XB1, PS3, 360, Wii U, Wii...you will see that highest price point is $60 for any platform, expect of special edition, steal books and similar.

Yes you could, buy maybe game is more than 40GB with all updates, we dont know thats a point. All Wii U games could fit on Wii U disks and Wii U disks were not expansive, so totally different situation compared to Switch.

Hinted by those same insider they were very accurate about previous Switch rumours or generally rumors and insiders information.

We still talking about rumours, but when rumours come from multiply very credible insiders that were very accurate before, than those rumours are definitely much more believable.

 

But point is that every company wants maximum profit in any case, so they will work to achieve that in any case, and $10 less profit per game is huge problem for any dev including R*, thats why no one using 32GB Switch carts yet. Again, we dont know details, maybe from start was plan to release game on 64GB carts but delay of them delayed game also, or maybe 32GB carts ended much more expensive than they thought so they waiting for cheaper price point of 32GB carts, on maybe from start was plan to release game in 2019. alongside cheaper 32GB carts or 64GB carts, maybe game is canceld and maybe they never even planed to release game on Switch (less likly). Again, we can only speculate for now what could be with GTAV, but fact is that we talking about real problem when we talk about size and cost of Switch carts that definitely affecting 3rd party devs espacily when we talking about big games.

What @Mnementh post, also proves that, what that dev said is totally in line with what insiders from Resetera also said.

Here Abstraction Games about the port of Ark Survival to the Switch: "Performance is not really the issue. The issue instead is in the size of carts. The 32GB carts are expensive, you shouldn't be wanting to do that. So we need to fit everything on 16GB, whereas the standard game on PS4 is much, much larger. It's a crazy ratio we're talking about."

 

 

Mnementh said:
DonFerrari said:

Strange since some months ago there were people swearing that the cartridges weren't more expensive than BD (like couple dollars difference)

Dunno who said that. But actual developers and porters talk about the cartridges as problem. Here Abstraction Games about the port of Ark Survival to the Switch:

He continues: "Performance is not really the issue. The issue instead is in the size of carts. The 32GB carts are expensive, you shouldn't be wanting to do that. So we need to fit everything on 16GB, whereas the standard game on PS4 is much, much larger. It's a crazy ratio we're talking about."

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-03-21-how-they-got-ark-survival-evolved-working-on-switch

Yeah, I forget about that, it very obvious we talking about real problem when comes to size and cost of Switch carts, and that effecting most on big games.

Last edited by Miyamotoo - on 26 October 2018