Some interesting analysis from Mat Piscatella about the state of the industry.
- Exclusives aren’t driving console purchases anymore, as evidenced by Forza Horizon 5 most of all.
- Nintendo would likely benefit from this too, but they’re unlikely to do so anytime soon.
- It’s too early to predict any sort of success for Switch 2, as the numbers they’re seeing right now may be little more than the supply being great enough to reach their biggest fans.
- Overall demand for gaming hasn’t gone down and has stabilized. Those dollars won’t be distributed evenly, but the enthusiasts are showing up.
EDIT: And now Sony has a job listing for someone to head an initiative to bring more games to other platforms, including Xbox and Nintendo.
Comparing Forza Horizon and Stellar Blade to the likes of Pokémon, Mario and Zelda is, frankly speaking, an exercise in futility. You can’t extrapolate useful data by comparing completely different products, catering to completely different audiences.
Why would a PlayStation user buy an Xbox, like, ever? It’s the same platform, doing the same thing, but worse. Heck, even Xbox users aren’t buying Xbox at this point. PS users waited for FH5 to come to them, because nobody in their right mind would buy a $500 console for FH5 alone, and there’s little from what the Xbox offers that entices them to buy their console.
Nintendo, meanwhile, offers them a different experience (handheld console) playing completely different games (a lot of award winning Nintendo exclusives).
Third parties have nothing to gain from exclusivity deals but the initial paycheck, while console manufacturers keep cashing in from people who bought into their ecosystem and are now locked into paying them a 30% cut for all their purchases. Final Fantasy went multiplatform because the exclusivity cash from Sony was not enough to offset the missed sales from other platforms. There’s also something to say about a shrinking playerbase which makes the franchise less prestigious in the long run (as less players grow up playing FF titles, they won’t develop interest in/nostalgia for the franchise and won’t buy future entries).
That has nothing to do with the argument at hand, though. It’s a completely different situation for two very different players in the market that have nothing to do with one another.
A lot of people would be content playing Zelda on their PC, that’s the entire point. A Nintendo console has as much value as the exclusive games you can play on it. Port them over, and a lot of people would just… Not buying the console at all.
There is no chance in hell that 30% from all purchases from a healthy fanbase on all games, DLCs and subscriptions (and that’s not factoring in hardware sales, like consoles, Amiibos and other overpriced plastic thingamajig Nintendo fans spend their money on) is even remotely comparable to a 70% cut on some titles, especially if taking that 70% cut risks lowering the interest and engagement on their main platform. Basically, MS had nothing to lose, their 30% cut was shit anyway, but Nintendo’s cut is far more valuable and, at least so far, more enticing than the other option.
And again, that’s also comparing different products. Mario Kart, Zelda and Smash are not even remotely comparable to Forza Horizon. Most players either don’t know that FH exists, or know it but aren’t interested enough to buy a console just for that game. I know plenty who regularly buy Nintendo consoles because of their games.
Except that it is. Of the 70-80M XboxOne users who bought that console, only half that much have decided to stick with Microsoft through the next gen. Those people didn’t disappear, they moved onto other (more enticing) consoles. WiiU was a dumpster fire and Switch went on becoming one of the most successful consoles ever: where did all those people come from? Did they stop gaming altogether while waiting for Nintendo to put their shit together? No, they bought a different console, and came back for the Switch because what they saw interested them.
There is certainly a lot going on in the younger market and the generational shift will be something to analyze in the years to come, but Nintendo’s strategy is not without reason.
But that’s exactly the same reason I stopped buying any console. I was more than happy to let the handful of Sony exclusives pass me by, and then they started coming to PC. Now I’m more than happy to let a handful of Nintendo exclusives pass me by.
But that’s not driving console sales like they used to. The last few Final Fantasy games seemed to do quite well on PC, indicating that people did not buy a PS5 to play them, and PS5 is having difficulty matching PS4 units sold even with the utter decimation of their closest competitor. That’s another point you made later in your post; wherever Xbox players went, it wasn’t to PlayStation. Data would seem to indicate that not even all of the PlayStation players stuck with PlayStation.
Exactly, but potentially, they would stand to make way more money by selling more copies of those games than by selling more Switch 2s and getting those customers locked in.
Yes, there is. If you got 30% of all sales from games on an install base the size of the Wii U, it’s not going to make up for a game like Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros. selling 100M additional copies on extra platforms. We don’t know yet how well Switch 2 will do (probably better than Wii U and not as well as the Switch 1), but at certain thresholds, that 30% leaves them worse off than that other 70 that reduces the value of their platform.
I agree with you here and I wish more people did it as well, but it’s not how it works. Millions of people buy a Nintendo console for their exclusive title of choice, be it Pokémon or Mario or whatever. That’s how it’s been for the past decades, and judging from the
20M3.5M consoles sold in a few days, that’s how it’s going for the Switch 2 as well.Those people had plenty of alternatives, be it a traditional console (PS/Xbox), a PC, or a handheld (Steam Deck). They went and bought a Nintendo on day one, despite the alternatives offering equal or better performance, similar form factor and in the same price range.
Yes, but again, that has nothing to do with the argument at hand. Third parties don’t have a horse in the race, they are content selling as many copies as they can because that’s their only revenue stream. It’s a completely different situation for console manufacturers, to the point that they are not even remotely comparable.
Exactly, which shows that players do move to whatever platform is more enticing to them. There is certainly a “core” fanbase that sticks to their console - either because they have invested in a digital library, or want to stick go their profile and the achievements/trophies built over the years, or simply because of blind brand loyalty - but there are also lots of people who jump ship and take their money elsewhere. And judging from the numbers, it’s not a small amount.
That was never the question. Of course they would sell more copies of those games by porting them elsewhere. The question is, does that risk them losing more money in the long run, as players buy their games elsewhere?
A Nintendo player gives nintendo 100% of the cut in any Zelda sale (and other first party titles), and a 30% cut on any other third party game bought on their platform. Conversely, a PlayStation player will give Microsoft 70% of the revenue for one single sale (Forza Horizon 5) and 0% on anything else.
If your user base is small (the Xbox user base certainly is) and not accustomed to buying games (which many devs have lamented over the years - I remember this article from 2022, for example), then it’s a no brainer: port your game to the rival console and enjoy that 70% cut. It’s not as cut-and-dry for Nintendo.
If your/Piscatella’s argument is that they should give up a 30% cut on all sales because of the possibility (insofar, with no backing) of their console selling less units than the predecessor, then it’s a bad argument.
Even if they somehow lost 10/20% of their previous user base, that’s still gigantic enough to make their 30% cut (and all adjacent revenue streams, like online subscriptions, hardware sales, etc) enticing, especially if those people are accustomed to buying games at full/near full price. Suggesting that the alternative - taking a 70% cut on a few select titles - would be better for them sounds, frankly speaking, ridiculous to me. I would be willing to hear that argument a few years down the line, after seeing how Switch 2 is really doing, but for now, there is simply no reason at all to even entertain such an absurd notion.