If you didn’t backpedal on the data that you thought this man didn’t have access to, or for not understanding how platforms taking a cut of sales works, then I’m sorry for thinking you could admit when you were wrong.

Those aren’t glaring holes in his argument; those are people rebutting the summary I put in the blurb that Lemmy lets me add without reading the article.

Xbox is doing badly, at least by the old console model, which is why they aren’t doing it anymore. Sony has reduced how much they’re sticking to the old model as well, by putting Helldivers on Xbox and most of their games on PC; does that not indicate the same thing to you?

Nintendo had the best launch in the history of game consoles because they had the most supply available in the history of game console launches, which is why Piscatella is noncommittal on how well the console is doing. Consoles basically always sell out, so it only shows that the people buying them are the people who would have bought it regardless, until we see how it does around the holiday.

He is not saying that Nintendo should copy what Xbox is doing. He is saying Nintendo might see a similar boon if they do what both Xbox and PlayStation are doing, because we are not seeing evidence that people are moving to a platform for exclusives, and we are seeing evidence that people are more than happy to wait on the platforms they’re on for the games to come to them. He also says Nintendo is unlikely to do it regardless, at least right now.

This isn’t the first time he’s spoken. He’s done this job for a long time, and people trust and respect his work. It would be a hell of a thing if he picked this time to start making things up. The trend he points out is something he acknowledges as a recent trend, in the last year or so, but he’s working with data that’s consistent with my own anecdotes, like how publisher after publisher have found that they’re making more money on PC than on consoles; that games that used to never come out on PC now dwarf the console versions in sales; that my friends mostly stopped playing on consoles last gen, and that I don’t see a need for new ones; that when I see kids playing games out and about, they’re on mobile far more often than they’re on Switch; and on and on.

I’ve been polite this whole time, but you decided this man didn’t know what he was talking about, backpedaled very hard when you found out what his actual credentials were, and then decided he was untrustworthy instead. He’s not the one with the credibility of a 3rd grader.

The article is a summary of an interview. If he was lying about any of this, competing firms or their business partners would call him out. I know how the world looks from our perspectives and how the console markets have always worked, but that’s why there are companies out there collecting data, and that’s why their perspectives can be worth listening to. No one can predict the future, but he’s sharing his insights into where the wind is blowing, and yes, it’s so that his company can sell a premium product to companies doing market research. The console business model has changed quite dramatically very recently and is looking like it will continue to change. He’s not the only one claiming that the console wars are over.

because nobody in their right mind would buy a $500 console for FH5 alone

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.

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% from all their purchases.

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.

Port [Nintendo games] over [to PC], and a lot of people would just… Not buying the console at all.

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.

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.

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.

He posts an image like this one along with each monthly report, but that’s also the sort of thing you should probably know before you claim that the author doesn’t have the data he needs. The data they don’t have, they disclose that it’s an estimate. Nintendo doesn’t like to share, but the retail partners that sell their consoles do.

The author doesn’t have anywhere near the data required to do any of this analysis

He works at Circana. He’s working with way, way more data than he’s allowed to publicly disclose, since part of Circana’s business is selling the in-depth stuff to partners, as well as analyzing it to show trends to their partners who want to know what is and is not working across the industry at the moment.

Did you read the article? Because the thesis is that even if this is working, they could stand to make more money by not doing it. Piscatella’s thesis would disagree with this statement of yours, for instance:

People already know Pokémon and Mario, and know those are good games. If they wanted to play them, they would’ve bought a Nintendo console.

And instead he’d say that people are happy where they are and would buy the game if it came to them, as evidenced by how high something like Stellar Blade or Forza Horizon 5 shoot up the charts when they get a port; FH5 already became one of the best-selling PS5 games for the year almost immediately, even though PS5 owners could have bought an Xbox to play it at any point. Or, not mentioned in the article, there’s the night and day financial difference that a PC port makes for the likes of a mainstay franchise like Final Fantasy. It’s not just an Xbox thing that he’s speaking to. Speaking for myself, I’d have bought Tears of the Kingdom if it came to PC, and instead I was happy to just not play it at all.

There’s no reason for Nintendo to give up their 30% sales cut to reach audiences in their system of choice.

There is if the volume of what they’re taking 30% of doesn’t make up for the money they would have made by making Mario Kart, Zelda, and Smash Bros. multiplatform releases. There are no guarantees that Switch 2 reaches the install base of Switch 1, especially with headwinds from the general state of the economy, and that can change the math on that equation very quickly.

The only concession Nintendo has done so far is to bring some spin-off titles to mobile, possibly in an attempt to corner the younger market that seems to be less interested in traditional consoles, and hook them with their games in the hope of them buying a Switch and doing their purchases on the Nintendo store.

They can hope that, but as Piscatella sees in the data, getting people to move largely isn’t happening.

I don’t have to imagine it; he’s backing up his points with data.

They’re the publisher of PUBG, and after making infinite money off of that, they’re diversifying.