Give me OLED or give me death.
“Am I charging too much? No, it’s the customers who are wrong!”
I went to my local shop’s website. The first game listed is Split Fiction for $70. The game doesn’t even have a cartridge. It’s literally a download code in the box. The PS5/Xbox versions are $65 and are on physical disc.
Who in their right mind is buying this? $70 for a Hogwart’s Legacy game key card? PS5 is $50 new. PS4 is $30.
Wouldn’t have expected anything else. The two types of people I’ve mostly seen buying the Switch 2 are those who are really into Mario Kart and those who are into Pokemon, for the extra frame rate.
Neither of these groups is known for buying 3rd party games - at least not the ones I know.
Yup! 🙋♂️ I’m only here (having a Switch 2) for the frame rate bump (which I thought I’d get from buying the Switch 2019, or the Switch OLED), as well as the GameCube games and future Mario and Zelda games. Nothing else.
There’s a high proportion of those two groups that plays third party on PC or even a steam deck. The Switch is just the current Nintendo machine.
I have mario games and that is it for switch. Ill wait until the piracy is strong to jump in on swotch two games.
those who are into Pokemon, for the extra frame rate
Not just Pokemon, I am sure there are many who where hoping for Switch Pro before Nintendo crushed their hopes and dreams with Switch OLED. People have been testing Switch 1 games on Switch 2 and most of them seem to run on very stable frame-rate on Switch even without an upgrade pack.
This will lead to stronger console sales but not necessarily to game sales at least not in the short run.
Not surprising considering that most 3rd party games are:
- Ports of old games so anyone who has a PS5/Xbox/PC can get them for cheaper.
- Overpriced ports as well, and in a system that is already rather expensive.
- Game Key Cards which won’t appeal to collectors who could still buy them despite #1 and #2.
I mean, main reason I got mine was to play the games I couldn’t stomach at switch 1 performance. Until duskbloods comes out, anyway.
Also, since I had a first gen switch 1, I was finally able to hack it without worrying about losing online functionality, so now it’s a nice emulation handheld.
Switch 2 had a wider selection, with 13 physical games available at launch.
Many gamers do not count game key-cards as physical games. Just another version of code in a box. Cyberpunk is probably only actual physical 3rd party release on switch.
Looking at this list of 3rd party games, I wonder if the reason for this is that most of these games have been available on other platforms already for quite some time. If you were interested in e.g. Hades 2, unless you just didn’t have a PC available, you probably weren’t waiting for an at-the-time unannounced Switch 2 to play it on. Heck, Cyberpunk is 5 years old at this point. Street Fighter 6 is 2 years old and was on a lot of other platforms.
I expect we might see different results when we see more 3rd party games getting simultaneous launch on Switch 2 and other platforms.
A lot of players and local venues prefer PS4, PS5 and PC for fighting games. If you have licensed PS4/PS5 arcade stick it should work on all three of these platforms. Unlicensed ones might not work with PS5 games. Switch is mostly just for melee.
That being said game key-cards seem largely inferior to physical versions on other platforms even if you likely have to patch most games these days anyways.
Game cards seem like a tone-deaf attempt to appeal to those who just want a physical copy.
I mean - they’re better than the codes they used to slap in boxes. At least you can lend these or sell them (for the lifespan of the console, or whatever server it uses…)
Are they? If you didn’t buy the game with the intent of lending/reselling later I feel they’re even worse than code-in-a-box.
Yeah, they’re not tied to accounts or consoles. Any console with the card in will be able to play the game after downloading it. You can trade or sell them.
Codes and boxes are just digital purchases with plastic waste attached and no further benefit.
They’re shittier than real physical games, but they still do have that one advantage over digital games, just with the drawback that you still have a physical cartridge you have to switch out and carry around. It’s a mixed bag.
In other words, they’re exactly the same as a lot of the games on disc for Xbox and PlayStation.
Theyre the exact same, the only reason to buy physical is to have the gane when the conpany decides to try and screw you over.
I mean they’re clearly not. Codes are one time use and forever bound to you, these can be sold/traded.
I’m not saying they’re good. Just that there is an advantage (and disadvantages)
It’s really too early to extract much of anything out of this.
Why? The console just launched. One would expect the initial sales numbers - both consoles and games - to be incredibly valuable information at this stage. Opening weeks are measured for like…every product launch
As the article says, the numbers especially matter in the context of the consoles sales numbers, which are incredibly high.
It’s too early to draw any conclusions. Take it from Mat Piscatella, who’s forgotten more about video game market research than I ever learned myself.
Hardware launches are not like game releases, anyway. It’s the establishment of a new product market, and early game releases on consoles have an ebb and flow to them that later blockbusters do not. It’s about building growth, not first-week sales.
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Nintendo
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Switch
“New product market”? Only in the most literal sense of the term. Functionally those rules do not apply at all. I mean come on, it’s called “Switch 2,” the sequel to a must-buy system.
This is a company that has been dropping consoles for almost half a century and still ends up in millions of homes when they fail. “Nintendo” is synonymous with “video games.” The switch Is literally one of the most successful video game hardware releases in history. When it comes to Nintendo, conventional wisdom does not apply. As evidenced by the unbelievable abuse their fans will endure sometimes.
Nintendo gets all these caveats and generous interpretations. If this was a new Xbox (definitely) or PlayStation (maybe) we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. People would just assume Microsoft or Sony fucked up. We’d be pointing and laughing and cheering on their demise.
conventional wisdom does not apply
All the more reason why it’s far too early to draw any conclusions.
It depends on why it doesn’t apply. You can’t just throw out some little flippant answer like that and act like you made a point of any substance.
There are sales expectations during product launches, and in the video game world when you’re selling a console there is a ratio of console to games that is expected. A notable example where people saw the same trend was the PS3, because people were buying it as an (at the time) affordable Blu-ray player with little to no intention of buying games. So in that case conventional wisdom did not apply, and this wasn’t apparent at first, so they had to figure out what was going on.
The point is nobody is saying Nintendo is doomed, but they’re saying that third-party sales are pretty far south of where they expected, which is concerning. That could always change, but as of now, it is clearly a note worthy data point. I don’t know why you feel this need to downplay it but it’s unwarranted and kind of strange. If I were Nintendo I would at least start lightly probing as to what is going on and at the very least keep close eyes on it in the coming weeks to see if the trend doesn’t reverse.
Just like “the fastest selling video game console launch in history“ matters, “lagging third-party title sales” matters too. Unless Nintendo is not allowed to brag about how many units they’ve sold initially because that data point, apparently, is not meaningful to you/too early? I would certainly disagree with that, but it’s pretty consistent with what you’ve argued so far.
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It will be valuable information when we have more data points to compare it against later. The console’s high initial sales may very well have little to do with anything except how many Nintendo had available, for instance. It could do Wii U numbers (unlikely), or it could be a mega success, or anything in between. The third party sales might be reflective of the fact that the games are all older and available on other platforms, or it could be that customers are strapped for cash after a higher console purchase price, or any of a number of other reasons. I would just encourage people not to make a narrative out of this yet.
It will be valuable then, and what we have is valuable now. I don’t understand why you’re acting like it’s some sort of either/or situation.
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There are 3rd party Switch 2 games? 🤔 I thought it was all 3rd party ports of Switch 1 games…
Most of the third-party titles are yesterday’s games, as already mentioned, and the newer ones are still in development. Meaning, Nintendo’s games are pretty much doing all the heavy lifting. And given the price versus buying power ratio for some games, the launch comes off as a bit mid, to say the least.
Hopefully things will improve in the future.
Wonder how it’d be if they didn’t include a cheaper Mario Kart bundle, as well. I had many people arguing with me that the price of MKW wasn’t $80 because of the bundle.
