At this point nobody doubts that the Nintendo Switch is a massive success. The hybrid console launched in March to huge numbers and it still carrying stock issues in markets like Japan. At the same time, Nintendo productions like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 2, and the recent Super Mario Odyssey have earned a place in the list of best sellers of the year. However, its success is not being shared equally among all the companies who have supported the console in its first months, with Electronic Arts even taking the decision of not releasing any more games on the console for now.
The drastic measures have been revealed through an interview with EA’s finance chief Blake Jorgensen posted on The Wall Street Journal, in which Jorgensen says that the company is waiting for the first anniversary of the console “to fully understand what the demand is.” To this day the most prominent release of the company for Nintendo Switch has been a port of FIFA 18, and despite not saying that it had poor sales, Jorgensen would not commit to give a definitive answer, simply saying that it’s too early to tell. However, we do know the port failed to make an impression in the UK charts, attracting less than 3% of the combined sales with other platforms.
The fact that third party releases tend to do worse on Nintendo consoles than the games developed by the console maker is nothing new, and while NIS America’s Disgaea 5 or Ubisoft’s Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle have turned out to be profitable ventures of their publishers, the story seems different for some Western multiplatform releases. Perhaps the sales of the upcoming Doom and Skyrim ports will offer a more clear image of the future third-party support for the console.
Published: Nov 2, 2017 01:11 pm