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Forums - Sales Discussion - PS5 Nearly Outsells Switch - Global Hardware Sep 26 to Oct 2

mk7sx said:

https://www.gamereactor.es/ventas-espana-metroid-dread-arrasa-y-supera-el-estreno-en-uk/

Summary below from IB not me.

Top 10 Ventas Semana 40: del 4 al 10 de octubre de 2021​





  1. FIFA 22 para PlayStation 4
  2. Metroid Dread para Nintendo Switch -
  3. Grand Theft Auto V para PlayStation 4
  4. Far Cry 6 para PlayStation 4
  5. Far Cry 6 para PlayStation 5
  6. FIFA 22 para PlayStation 5
  7. FIFA 22 para Nintendo Switch
  8. Metroid Dread - Edición Especial para Nintendo Switch
  9. Alan Wake Remastered para PlayStation 5
  10. NBA 2K22 para PlayStation 5


FIFA22 -> 43.000 ALL
Metroid Dread -> 25.000
Far Cry 6 -> 15.000 ALL (6.000 PS5 | 6.000 PS4)
Alan Wake Remastered -> 6.500 ALL (3.300 PS5 x2 PS4)


Hardware

Switch: 14.000 (12.000 OLED | White version 9.000)
PS5: 8.500 (5:1 Disc vs Digital)
XBS: 1.600 (2:1 S vs X)

Interesting: OLED bigger launch than Lite just like the UK. Dread Bigger First week sales than the UK on a smaller install base.  



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curl-6 said:
Fight-the-Streets said:

Don't get me wrong, I have a blast too with my Switch, the most played console for me and it's far from over, even though I play 95% docked (and still will buy a Switch OLED because it looks so damn good, it's worth for those 5%).

I even think I wasn't quite correct in my analysis. As always, as soon as a new console is on the market, they already work on the next console. It is a known fact that the former President Satoru Iwata (R.I.P.) was already involved in the NX project (which later became the Switch). Can't remember the source but in an interview somewhere Nintendo also mentioned that the Switch was conceptualized as a hybrid right from the beginning and if you think about it, it was a very logical step after the Wii U was a console with a separate screen (the GamePad), the Switch was the opposite of it, the console is the GamePad and it can be docked to the TV. In 2012, when the Wii U launched, a hybrid either simply wouldn't have been technically possible or it would had to come with very outdated graphics capabilities combined with a very low battery life. Still, the step from a very unsuccessful Wii U to the Switch hybrid concept was very courageous from Nintendo as on the surface the hybrid concept is just a continuation of the Wii U concept which was a complete failure.

Nevertheless, if the Wii U would have been successful, it's not clear how the successor would have looked like and if Nintendo still would have adopted a two-pronged strategy with a different successor to the 3ds. One thing is for sure, if the Wii U would have been successful, its successor would have come to the market about two years later (2018/19). As they would have had two successful Wii branded consoles in a row, it's very likely that the successor would have continued the Wii brand. We can only speculate what would have come to the market in 2018/19, a more powerful Switch (than the current one we have in our hands) or an even more ambitious console?

I think the two pronged strategy would have been unified anyway as it was simply becoming too hard to make enough games for two separate devices once they reached roughly 6th and 7th gen in graphical complexity.

We may have seen a slightly more powerful Switch in 2018 if Wii U had been successful, (though knowing Nintendo it may have been the exact same just released later) perhaps called "Wii Switch" but I don't think another dedicated home console would've been on the cards.

I guess Nintendo still would have used a Tegra X1 SoC just much more customized for optimization which would have resulted in slightly better capabilities. The best Nvidia could offer by 2019 was a Tegra X2 (Parker) but this SoC was manly optimized for the automobile industry and would have brought basically no technical improvement for the game industry in comparison to the Tegra X1. As the Tegra X2 uses a 16nm FinFET+ manufacturing process compared to the 20nm of Tegra X1 it would have been more power efficient and therefore, would have given a longer battery life. However, as the Tegra X2 was still new in 2018/2019 (and manufacturing of the Switch would have started even earlier) the price for it would have been expensive and Nintendo surely would not have used it.



Fight-the-Streets said:
curl-6 said:

I think the two pronged strategy would have been unified anyway as it was simply becoming too hard to make enough games for two separate devices once they reached roughly 6th and 7th gen in graphical complexity.

We may have seen a slightly more powerful Switch in 2018 if Wii U had been successful, (though knowing Nintendo it may have been the exact same just released later) perhaps called "Wii Switch" but I don't think another dedicated home console would've been on the cards.

I guess Nintendo still would have used a Tegra X1 SoC just much more customized for optimization which would have resulted in slightly better capabilities. The best Nvidia could offer by 2019 was a Tegra X2 (Parker) but this SoC was manly optimized for the automobile industry and would have brought basically no technical improvement for the game industry in comparison to the Tegra X1. As the Tegra X2 uses a 16nm FinFET+ manufacturing process compared to the 20nm of Tegra X1 it would have been more power efficient and therefore, would have given a longer battery life. However, as the Tegra X2 was still new in 2018/2019 (and manufacturing of the Switch would have started even earlier) the price for it would have been expensive and Nintendo surely would not have used it.

Nvidia actually offered a more capable SoC to Nintendo for the Switch. They offered them a Pascal based SoC for not much more than the X1. Nintendo opted to save a few pennies. For good or ill, Nintendo's cost conscious nature is why they dated back to the 19th Century.



Fight-the-Streets said:

I don't want to drag on this topic but as someone who is first and foremost a Nintendo-gamer, owning all Nintendo consoles (except the Virtual Boy) I can somewhat relate to where Alistair is coming from. I play may Switch 95% docked and I always very much preferred Nintendo's home consoles over the handhelds. It is my wet dream that Nintendo will release a powerful home console in the future. But I understand that this is not very likely and I also understand why Nintendo is doing what they are doing. It simply makes the most sense, businesswise. Seeing that the Switch is tremendously successful, how will the successor look like? Well, most probably just a more powerful Switch (yes, probably with one or two new little gimmicks).

But how did Nintendo came to where they are now? Looking back, their handhelds were always much more successful than their home consoles and their profits even more so. You have to consider that handhelds are cheaper to make and their games are faster and cheaper to make, all resulting in adding up to the profit. Nevertheless, the Wii was tremendously successful and Nintendo thought they have found the golden formula for their home consoles, i.e. cheap casual console with a gimmick (remote controllers). But then, obviously, they didn't really understand their own golden formula and instead of continuing with just a more powerful Wii 2 (a Super Wii), they released the Wii U instead, a complete new console, expensive and with a complete new gimmick (gamepad with a screen). Sure, you still could use your Wii remote controllers on it but barely any new interesting game came out using them and the horrendous marketing did the rest to kill off the success of the Wii U.

With that, Nintendo was at their lowest point, even their newest handheld, the Nintendo 3DS, was not a success compared to its tremendously successful predecessor, the DS. I can only guess what Nintendo talked about then in their board meetings but I think they analysed the gaming market and looked at their competitors. Sony and Microsoft had successful powerful home consoles and it was clear where the road is leading to in the next generations: to even more powerful and even more expensive consoles. Sony and Microsoft will fight each other in a red ocean market with diminishing returns. So, they thought, if we enter this market as well, this red ocean will become even bloodier and the return will diminish even further. Further, they knew that Nintendo is a much smaller company than Sony and Microsoft, in order words, the war chests of their competitors are much bigger and they are able to stay in the fight for a much longer time. Sony and Microsoft can afford to sell consoles for a loss, Nintendo can't (yes they did it in the beginning for the Wii U but they hated it), Sony and Microsoft can afford to invest into expensive high-end servers for online gaming, related community services and support, etc. pp., Nintendo can't. For that, Nintendo must rely much more on expensive 3rd parties and external contractors than their competitors who have lots of the necessary knowledge and manpower inhouse. The 7. generation has shown that online gaming is huge and will have a huge growth rate. Nintendo will not really be able to compete with Sony and Microsoft on that ground. On top of it, smartphones came and became a serious thread for handheld consoles.

So what to do, they ask themselves? Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, "How about a hybrid console?", someone asked. All the others: "a hybrid console?" Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, "that's actually a very clever idea if we do it right!" Thus, project NX was born and resulted in the Nintendo Switch which in turn determined the fate of Nintendo... .

Yeah, I see your point.   That said, it was really the Gamecube that put coffin nails in Nintendo's business model of releasing powerful hardware and winning the graphics war.  Really, if you want to get to the true route of it, it was the PS1 which started the trend of Nintendo losing the conventional home console market.  I mean, we all blame N64 losing the fifth generation on the cartridge-based media but the truth is that Nintendo lost that gen because Sony was just better at attracting third parties and responding to their needs.  Even if the N64 used CD's it wouldn't have changed its fate, in my opinion.  The Gamecube only reinforced this point.  In a lot of ways, the Gamecube was more of a dismal failure for Nintendo's business model than the Wii U.  The Wii U was botched by foolish mistakes made by Nintendo and it probably would have sold fairly well otherwise if only the concept and marketing had been arranged better.  On the other hand, the Gamecube had everything going for it and was firing on all cylinders and was almost as big of a failure as the Wii U, at least in terms of market share.  It must have been so frustrating and demoralizing for Nintendo during the Gamecube era because it truly was a great console and it has aged amazingly well.  It just wasn't what gamers wanted at the time. 

The early 2000's was when most of the 80's and 90's gamer kids were young adults and the mantra of the day was that mature gamers wanted mature games.  Everything that Nintendo stood for was under attack.  Mario platformers were out and first person shooters like Halo and crime games like GTA were in big time.  Nintendo got heavily typecast in the young family category.  Even as an early teen at the time, I took a lot of flack for owning a Gamecube since it was the "kiddie" console.

The situation has changed though.  The scary and uncertain times we are living in now is boosting demand for Nintendo's brand in a major way.  People naturally want to return to the more innocent times in their life when faced with prolonged fear and so I really believe that this is what is mainly boosting Nintendo's brand, not the hybrid concept.  I am sure that the Switch2.0 could be launched as a home console only product and at this point and it will continue to sell well.  People want the experiences and the world that Nintendo creates with its games, the hardware is just the platform for creating this.  Nintendo's hardware only needs to be as powerful as is needed for them to create the experiences that they are trying to create with their games.



curl-6 said:

I think the two pronged strategy would have been unified anyway as it was simply becoming too hard to make enough games for two separate devices once they reached roughly 6th and 7th gen in graphical complexity.

We may have seen a slightly more powerful Switch in 2018 if Wii U had been successful, (though knowing Nintendo it may have been the exact same just released later) perhaps called "Wii Switch" but I don't think another dedicated home console would've been on the cards.

I never thought about this, and it makes sense, maybe even a slighty more powerful Wii Switch in 2019, we could have some new gen PS5/XBX games right now on that Switch.



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Darc Requiem said:
Fight-the-Streets said:

I guess Nintendo still would have used a Tegra X1 SoC just much more customized for optimization which would have resulted in slightly better capabilities. The best Nvidia could offer by 2019 was a Tegra X2 (Parker) but this SoC was manly optimized for the automobile industry and would have brought basically no technical improvement for the game industry in comparison to the Tegra X1. As the Tegra X2 uses a 16nm FinFET+ manufacturing process compared to the 20nm of Tegra X1 it would have been more power efficient and therefore, would have given a longer battery life. However, as the Tegra X2 was still new in 2018/2019 (and manufacturing of the Switch would have started even earlier) the price for it would have been expensive and Nintendo surely would not have used it.

Nvidia actually offered a more capable SoC to Nintendo for the Switch. They offered them a Pascal based SoC for not much more than the X1. Nintendo opted to save a few pennies. For good or ill, Nintendo's cost conscious nature is why they dated back to the 19th Century.

Do you have a source for Nvidia offering Nintendo a stronger chip for not much more? I'd love to get some details.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 17 October 2021

curl-6 said:
Darc Requiem said:

Nvidia actually offered a more capable SoC to Nintendo for the Switch. They offered them a Pascal based SoC for not much more than the X1. Nintendo opted to save a few pennies. For good or ill, Nintendo's cost conscious nature is why they dated back to the 19th Century.

Do you have a source for Nvidia offering Nintendo a stronger chip for not much more? I'd love to get some details.

I'd heard it more than once. I'd have track down the specific video on Moore's Law Is Dead's youtube channel. It wasn't the subject of the video. It came up in passing. Unfortunately, it was one of his 2 hour pod cast videos where interviews a developer, software engineer, or some other person in the tech space.



SKMBlake said:
Jumpin said:

yet falling into a distant last place by the end of its generation.

Second place, not last place (that title would go to the Saturn)

You clipped it out of context. I meant in relation to the NES, Gameboy, and SNES.



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