Meanwhile the new Call of Duty comes along and completely obliterates Nintendo's games in terms of sales. The market is in a very awkward place.
I am well aware of the kind of point he is making. My point is that Microsoft and Sony are operating in a completely different paradigm. Nintendo are not on their way to dominating sales, at least not automatically. The market has split down the middle where a bulk of sales are concentrated in a very small pool of AAA games. With luck, Nintendo will be able to absorb some of that through Switch ports of high profile titles, but the Switch's hardware and audience does present a problem.
The Switch selling out is completely meaningless, is what I'm saying.
1% of UK FIFA sales were on Switch. Those kind of numbers may improve, but they paint a troubling picture of the Switch's performance on games that aren't, like I said, "stereotypically 'Nintendo' games". The Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii alike had poor software sales of games that were not "stereotypically 'Nintendo' games". It remains to be seen whether the Nintendo Switch avoids the poor sales of the Wii and DS. Those consoles sold fantastically, with high attachment rates for "Nintendo"-like games, but most everything else sold poorly at best, terribly at worst. Of course a Rabbids game will sell well on the Switch. But that doesn't mean that third party titles are going to sell gangbusters.
The film VFX industry has been on the brink of an implosion for many years.
Overhead can be obscene in game companies. And no offense to movie companies but their productions are not as hectic as game companies from what I've read over the years. Moving a prop on set can cause absolutely no issues. But making small changes to the games code can have dozen of unforeseeable problems arrive no matter how well you plan.
If you made GTA V you don't have a problem, quite the contrary - you are swimming in money.
Mario, Pokemon, Layton, Final Fantasy, those brain training and/or puzzle games. They're the kind of games that crackled a million copies. Everything else was a in a huge slump. Same on the Wii.
Such as?
There's a reason Capcom stopped localizing Phoenix Wright games. Remember Renegade Kid? Their FPS games on DS sold poorly. A lot of DS games sold poorly. It was a widespread problem. It's the exact same problem the N64 had. Plenty of third party support, but poor sales of third party games leading to publishers being less willing to support the platform. A vicious cycle. And it has been a Nintendo problem for years. We shall see whether the Switch bucks the very well established trend.
They stopped localizing them, or at least started inconsistently localizing them, because they sold poorly outside Japan.
The fact you call it a "shitty Silent Hill game" says a lot. AFAIK, the only Call of Duty game we have official Wii sales figures for is World at War, which sold approximately a million copies. The problem is that the Wii had an install base that was much, much higher than the other consoles but its sales were a tiny fraction.
The developers stated that their games sold poorly. That's why Moon never got a sequel. Dementium sold very poorly in some regions. They eventually stopped making games due to poor 3DS game sales.
Where are you getting poor sales from? If you have any quotes or statements from these developers, I'd love to see them. Otherwise, it feels like you're just making baseless assumptions.
"The sales in Europe were pretty good, but not as good as in the US. I'm sure there are many reasons for this. Top of the list is the fact that the European market seems to be even more controlled by retail than in the US. I get the impression that the DS is pushed harder as a platform for kids in the UK. Not by Nintendo, but by retail."
Not as good doesn't equal poor.
You seem awfully defensive of Nintendo for some reason. This has nothing to do with Nintendo. You also seem to ignore just how badly their games sold later on, which was a key factor in their demise.
I don't think you understand the problem, TBH. Third party games, high profile games, quite consistently sold poorly on Wii and DS, as they did on the N64 and GC before it. And 3DS. This was offset by the games being lower budget, but it is a serious problem that first reared its head on the N64. Third party sales that are ridiculously low compared to the install base. There were more Wiis than PS3 or 360s, yet Wii versions of multiplats generally sold a tiny fraction of the other versions.
3DS sales were even worse, of course. but that was probably their poor luck to some extent.
I think this was just his personal opinion, based on relatively lower software sales late in the DS' life
With all due respect, you are the one in denial of the reality that over the past decade or so, 3rd party games have suffered serious problems selling on Nintendo platforms. You're the one without concrete facts. That publishers have become shy about releasing games on Nintendo platforms is well known. You refuse to acknowledge that problem. You're the one who doesn't have a concrete argument here. Just last month, the smash hit FIFA 18 sold a dismal 1% of its copies on the Nintendo Switch. You can handwave that away all you want. "UK has never been Nintendo's biggest market?" That's not at all helpful. What do you think EA is going to do if they release more Switch games and they keep selling poorly? Do you think they're going to make Switch exclusive games? Do you think they're going to port more games to Switch?
This really only applies to the current powers entrenched in the system.
Yup its the nature of capitalism, ypu invest big, you may get back even more or go bankrupt. Its a very competitive market, your game may appeal to millions or struggle to reach a few thousands.
As I said, agree to disagree. However, as you're quite aware, third part games you know, actually sell on those platforms. Wii sales made up a tiny fraction of multiplat sales. Third part games, especially mature ones, struggle to sell on Nintendo's platforms and have done so for many, many years. Mass Effect: Andromeda sold millions of copies. Dev team was absorbed into another EA division. Visceral's last game sold millions of copies. The problem was not a lack of sales, per se, and I'm not sure why you're using them as examples here.
That is completely true. As for the second point, the handhelds become a dumping ground for low budget projects that were utterly hit and miss but loosely speaking low risk. But the Vita's support dried up tragically quickly, and possibly due to piracy the PSP's 70+ million install base wasn't reflected in sales. The PSP enjoyed GTA LCS/VCS as a significant driver of sales, for example, but it all fell apart somewhat rapidly.
Yeah, that is true. A lot of the games weren't exactly good or worthwhile and it showed. At the same time, however, they had a lot of hidden gems that wouldn't have been viable on consoles
Which is why many studios (AAA or otherwise) have chosen not to adopt that strategy, and instead focus on establishing a solid brand (including user trust) and putting out quality content.
