Which ones exactly? Also what does that mean for total 3rd party sales?
There have been some failures (massive ones in the saw of FIFA 18), there have been some decent performances and there have been some successes. Actually breaking it down and discussing these points is what makes a conversation.
I feel like we're kind of retreading the old arguments from the wii generation. Which 3rd parties games have actually sold less than would have been expected? Most of them are late ports are low budget efforts. There is so little to judge switch 3rd party sales on. Comparing that to sales juggernaughts like Mario kart, Mario and Zelda doesn't tell us anything.
Let's look at some examples.
FIFA 18 - clearly a massive disappointment. It was released at the same time as the other consoles and it's a decent port (though it's online is pretty awful).
Skyrim - it's a port of a 6 year old game which is available on 360, PS3, PS4 and xbone and has been for years. It also sold really well on PC. Not only that but it was just ported again last year. It was never going to move huge numbers on switch. It seems to have had a good start in the US and has performed well on the eshop. It's pretty hard to judge without knowing expectations and exactly how much it has sold.
WWE - as stated above it's a terrible port and was also late. It was never going to perform well.
NBA2K - we have PR saying the pub was happy with its sales. Sure it's PR and could be misleading but it's hard to use it as an example when the people who made it said it performed well.
Doom - Yet another late port. It's hard to be excited about a game releasing a year late which is a downgrade on the original (even though yes it's portable). It's sales are no doubt disappointing but that's what you get with late ports.
LA Noire - It sold 20% opening week just behind the xbone version in the UK where the switch hasn't been overly strong. Not a breakout success but it didn't perform any worse than other platforms.
Sonic - performed better on switch I believe. Hard to ask for more.
Minecraft - appears to have strong sales on the eshop. Without data it's impossible to judge though.
SFII - massive success that has sold far more than it ever deserves to.
Bomberman - a pretty average entry in a franchise that isn't a big seller. Again it sold far better than anyone would have expected.
Xeno verse - seemingly had a slow start but has went on to post very good numbers and continues to show strong legs.
Mario and rabbids - Massive success that looks set to be a multi million seller. It did use a Nintendo IP so I can see why it would be discounted.
Looking at that list I agree it's hardly been a breakthrough in terms of 3rd party sales. Looking at the games that have released should we have expected much more?
I understand big companies like EA not clamouring to jump on board. I don't expect the switch to suddenly receive all the big 3rd party games. I do think there are some promising results there and at least enough to entice some 3rd parties to want to support the switch.
seems a good summary.
UK market for western publisers switch games still seems pretty disappointing, while other markets or other publishers (from the Japanese ones like Bandai with Xeno or Capcom with Street Fighter, to the Indie ones) seems to have found very positive results.
In general, it seems that big AAA western games aren't finding the success related to the usual AAA western games, but at the same time it is pretty obvious that apart from FIFA (that to me is THE disappointment so far) there has been no real AAA western game published on the console. Late ports are the vast majority of the contents seen. The other game that arrived at the same time is NBA, I think, and "k was happy about the result, so...
For the record US sales for Western pubs on Switch seem quite a bit better in the US from the public data.
I'm still not impressed with it on that front but it seems to be a better situation than the UK at least
Well yes the UK market clearly is the hardest one for the Switch so far.
Not the EU one, but the UK one. I think that in France and Germany the general results has been better, with decent results in the US.
(just talking about third party phisical software here, of course)