How does the success of one title affect that of a completely unrelated other title?
Nintendo FY3/2020 Q4 Earnings Release, Switch Hardware 55.77M LTD
- Thread starter ggx2ac
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It had good initial sales, good word of mouth, was heavily promoted, a known IP and was a Nintendo Switch game. I expected it to do over 3 million. Not that it did poorly or anything.
It doesn't? I simply wouldn't expect Ring Fit to be the bigger game, and I feel it would have been if not for the shortage.
Nintendo has been making a profit with their mobile games YOY, but they don't mention launching any new ones this year, only promoting the already released ones. I wonder why, I know some of Nintendo's games have a mixed response but they're fun and are profitable.
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As a sidenote, I wonder if digital-only games are included in that revenue number?
I've edited my post to include the computation using that proportion (I'll repeat it here). Note that it gives us a lower bound for third party sales:
If we assume that that is true, then we can work out third party lifetime sales on the platform. Let's give it a try:
FY2019 {01-04-2019 through 31-03-2020}: 69.03M (proportion 82.8%, total 168.72M)
FY2018 {01-04-2018 through 31-03-2019}: 46.46M (proportion 83.8%, total 118.55M)
FY2017 {01-04-2017 through 31-03-2018}: 24.20M (proportion 85.3%, total 63.51M)
I have chosen not to include FY2016 because Switch wasn't around for most of it, so the numbers doesn't tell us a great deal. What this tells us is that out of the 350.78M units shipped between April 1st 2017 and March 31st 2020, 139.69M are third party software. That doesn't sound too bad considering basically all AAA games skip the system.
NOTE: All of this is assuming the proportion number is based on revenue. If it's not, then you can discard this. There is some messing up going on with the 3DS and WiiU's residual software sales, but that shouldn't have a big impact. All of this assumes that the average selling price of third party games is the same as those of Nintendo games, or at least that Nintendo's share remains that same 30%. It can only be lower, meaning that more third party games are being sold at lower prices. It can't mean that third party sells fewer units, unless most third party software happens in deluxe editions of over $60 (which is not very likely).
Mathematics used to arrive there:
Let x and y be the amount of first party and third party software, respectively. N is the total software shipped, as reported in the earnings releases. Let P be the reported proportion of first game sales (in revenue terms for Nintendo). Then, the following system of equations must hold:
{ x/(x+0.3*y) = P,
{ x + y = N
Now, to compute x (and y as a consequence):
y = (x-x*P) / (0.3*P)
N - x = (x-x*p) / (0.3*P)
N = (x - 0.7*x*P) / (0.3*P)
x(1 - 0.7*P) = 0.3*N*P
x = 0.3*N*P / (1 - 0.7*P)
Using this formula, you can directly compute x, since N and P are known for each fiscal year. y is calculated simply by using y = N - x.
It makes sense for that to be a revenue number. It would say unit sales if it was referring to unit sales I imagine. That number is the percentage of their revenue generated by their titles compared to total revenue generated by all game sales on their platform. At least that is hownI am intpretting it. Knowing what we know about Switch sales it seems odd they sold only 30m packaged and DL units of third party software. Calender year 2019 for just the top 100 in Japan was just under 4 million.
The big issue with this formula is that you're assuming all third party software and all first party software have the same cost, which is absolutely not the case. That's why I said it would be really hard to use this method to estimate total third party sales, since the costs for those games vary greatly, whereas the majority of the first party titles are sold at full price.
Yeah I've always understood it to be revenue too but a lot of people have pointed to it and assumed it was units, so I was just trying to look for definitive proof of that.
That's amazing!! Ring-fit has totally made my quarantine better.
And those crazy sales numbers are all ready to be taken down when the metroid prime trilogy and prime 4 arrive next year, right?
please
And those crazy sales numbers are all ready to be taken down when the metroid prime trilogy and prime 4 arrive next year, right?
please
True, it means that the number we get out of that is the absolute lower bound. Considering that, we are looking at 140M third party games sold at an absolute minimum, and even that sounds pretty decent in its own right considering all the major AAA games skip the platform to me.
IMO, the only conclusion to draw here is that third party is rather strong on Switch. Probably not as strong as on a PS/XB platform, but still pretty good. We don't know how good it is, but we know that it is good at least. This should dispel the notion that third party can't sell on the Switch, at least.
If it was units the other flaw is that it sales total dedicated video game unit sales. That would imply this includes DL only games are included in this. That would not make any sense. 0 chance all third party unit sales in the last FY was less than 30m. The sheer volume of release guarantees that.
Good point, yeah it gives us a lower bound. It's obviously gonna be a lot higher than that number.
Well yeah it has always seemed obvious that it's revenue but again I was looking specifically for hard evidence, which I now have.
Wii Fit was huge and while it's true that no exercise game since then quite caught the zeitgeist in the same way that game did, a fitness product from Nintendo was always going to have broader appeal than Fire Emblem. Quarantine certainly helped but it was hard to find even before then.
Fire Emblem is never going to be a huge series in comparison to many other Nintendo franchises, just be glad it's still doing well in its own niche.
Even if it wasn't hard evidence I think the logic is just weird because 30m third party sales in a year would not yield the response we see on the platform from publishers. 9 titles would make up 33% minimum. Its hard to believe we are seeing all this increased support and all these ports if all these publishers were sharing 30m units.
Titles from 2017 and 2018 are still selling units too.
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Super Mario Maker 2 fiscal year and global LTD dont match and I think they should?
We were! I'm just not disagreeing with anything you're saying haha
I literally just made that point to try and suss out some hard evidence that the number is revenue based, because several people on this site have claimed/assumed it to be units based and when I tell them it's probably revenue based they ask for a source.
Stunning results. Am I reading that right that they are only predicting 19 million hardware for next fiscal year and 140 million software? I mean hardware I can kind get since there are technically a lot of unknowns with the depression but the software goal just seems absurd. They almost had 170 million this year
They predicted 140 for this past FY too. Actually less than that back when the first forecast was out, it was revised up to 140 at the end of Q3 I believe.
They like to be very cautious especially with their software forecasts.
I mean hardware I get. Production chains have been disrupted lots of unknowns. I still think if they can make them they will easily crush that hardware goal. The software one just seems absurdly low for some reason though. Maybe they are concerned about timelines of releasing new software being impacted. Even still with the existing software they should be able to crush it
Again, how exactly is this absurdly low?
This time last year their forecast for FY20 (the one that just ended) was around 125M IIRC. They then raised it to 140M at the end of Q3, and in actuality they reached 168M.
This year they're forecasting it to be 12% higher than they did last year, and they admitted they don't have any Pokemon/Animal Crossing caliber titles for this FY. It seems like a pretty reasonably conservative forecast like all of their software forecasts have been.
Ah fair enough. Reading all the slides, it specifically says unit sales when referring to such. I feel like that should "maybe" be everyone's hint lol.
That is what happens with almost all the people who play Pokémon, the percentage that dedicates their time to multiplayer or postgame is very low.
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There's also Ubisoft's Just Dance series which sold 70+ million.
Not only Pokémon too. Most people don't even finish most games they play
I think it is time we crown it Nintendo's greatest console. In my mind it has surpassed the SNES and the GBA, in quality and quantity of it's greatest games.
Yeah, trying to use it to downplay Sword / Shield success is useless
Minecraft
Mario & Sonic
Spyro
Crash Team Racing
The Witcher III
Mortal Kombat 11
Mario & Rabbids
Just Dance 2020
Fifa 20
Overwatch
are all likely candidates
DQ11 can't be it, it was published by Nintendo outside of Japan and it sold only ~500k retail in Japan. It may have done over 1m globally but it wouldn't be considered a million seller from another publisher.
The rest I could see maybe.
I think that after the huge success of Awakening, Fates and Heroes, the challenge for FE was consolidating itself as a reliable seller.
Awakening and Fates could have been a flash in the pan. Especially since Fates resorted to excessive pandering and three different versions of the game. I know some people (not on this forum) who were expecting Echoes numbers for Three Houses and its more "sober" art style.
In the end, Three Houses was a huge success and firmly established FE as a "B-Tier" Nintendo franchise like, say, Kirby.
Ah yeah, I had forgotten about it being published by Nintendo in the west