Selling over 200 Million software in FY 2023 sounds to me they pretty much need third parties, even when there is not a single third party game which rivals the sales of Nintendo First Party titles. Except for maybe Monster Hunter and Minecraft (of which we don‘t know the sales numbers but it‘s likely over 20 million).
Their FY2023 report says 80% of those software sales are 1st party.
Yes, that 20% is always important to have as well, but it’s clear it can just be the lower budget, indie, AA, games that target mobile platforms.
AAA 3rd party multiplats that target next gen hardware usage don’t affect Nintendo success at all. So when I hear people saying Nintendo “needs” to target the big “current gen” multiplat support…I will always ask “but why”
Again, Sony will show 80-85% of their software sales last year was 3rd party. Much of that being the bigger ones that want to show off what new hardware does. Sony obviously wants to keep that and cater to it. Otherwise they lose a majority portion of their revenue.
Still the business of Nintendo dosen‘t work with First party games alone. In theory as long as Switch is selling, most third parties will decide to bring games to the platform if possible. But at some point this is getting harder and maybe not worth the money to invest the time for a Switch port. Not even for indie games, which are getting more complex too.
I argue it’s always possible.
The Witcher 3 on the Switch proves this. It was relatively cheap to port, with a relatively small (yet very good at optimizing) team.
Any game that appears on the Xbox One could be put on the Switch. Any of them.
So when they don’t, it’s not because it’s impossible, it’s because they don’t think there is demand for certain type of games on a Nintendo portable to make the effort worth the extra porting.
And the sales of these big multiplats that do make a Switch port actually support that theory that it’s not worth diverting resources to. Just let those resources focus on ps/Xbox/pc which promise better returns on investments.
A much more powerful Switch hardware won’t change this equation. It will still get the same type of support it has always gotten.
Now you can say, so what, as long as Nintendo is releasing new games for their platforms? Though getting continuously new third parties on your platform is something that even your average Joe is noticing.
My argument is that the Switch platform has the best 3rd party support of any Nintendo system ever. And people have noticed that.
So…the type of big multiplats that it hasn’t been getting in the last 6 years, it’s perfectly OK if it still doesn’t get those games in the next 6 years.
No one should be under the illusion that this new powered model will get any kind of new support that it hasn’t already gotten.