It will be valuable information when we have more data points to compare it against later. The console’s high initial sales may very well have little to do with anything except how many Nintendo had available, for instance. It could do Wii U numbers (unlikely), or it could be a mega success, or anything in between. The third party sales might be reflective of the fact that the games are all older and available on other platforms, or it could be that customers are strapped for cash after a higher console purchase price, or any of a number of other reasons. I would just encourage people not to make a narrative out of this yet.
Comment on New report suggests third-party Switch 2 game sales are "below estimates"
LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 1 day agoWhy? The console just launched. One would expect pretty the initial sales numbers - both consoles and games - to be incredibly valuable information at this stage. Opening weeks are measured for like…every product launch
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 day ago
LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
It will be valuable then, and what we have is valuable now. I don’t understand why you’re acting like it’s some sort of either/or situation.
Ashtear@lemmy.zip 21 hours ago
It’s too early to draw any conclusions. Take it from Mat Piscatella, who’s forgotten more about video game market research than I ever learned myself.
Hardware launches are not like game releases, anyway. It’s the establishment of a new product market, and early game releases on consoles have an ebb and flow to them that later blockbusters do not. It’s about building growth, not first-week sales.
LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 21 hours ago
Nintendo
Switch
“New product market”? Come on. Only in the most literal sense of the term. Functionally those rules do not apply at all.
Nintendo gets all these caveats and generous interpretations. If this was a new Xbox (definitely) or PlayStation (maybe) we wouldn’t even been having this conversation.
Ashtear@lemmy.zip 15 hours ago
All the more reason why it’s far too early to draw any conclusions.
LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
It depends on why it doesn’t apply. You can’t just throw out some little flippant answer like that and act like you made a point of any substance.
There are sales expectations during product launches, and in the video game world when you’re selling a console there is a ratio of console to games that is expected. A notable example where people saw the same trend was the PS3, because people were buying it as an (at the time) affordable Blu-ray player with little to no intention of buying games. So in that case conventional wisdom did not apply, but it also concerns Soni because they were not moving games per unit like they were expecting that persisted for years (in conjunction with How difficult it was to develop for the cell architecture).
The point is nobody is saying Nintendo is doomed, but they’re saying that third-party sales are nowhere near where they expected which is concerning. That could always change, but as of now, it is clearly a note worthy data point. I don’t know why you feel this need to downplay it but it’s unwarranted and kind of strange. If I were Nintendo I would at least start lightly probing as to what is going on and at the very least keep close eyes on it in the coming weeks to see if the trend doesn’t reverse.