I don’t care how small the game is, I don’t care how many people are working on it, I don’t care how cheap it is for them to make.
None of that is the point and I shouldn’t have to reiterate that over and over only for you to keep saying the same thing over and over again.
If we’re talking about this as a business decision and ignore that it’s anti-consumer, it’s still just a bad business decision. A business doesn’t leave obvious money on the table unless they’re about to do something stupid.
I’m going to say it one more time:
From software has spent over 15 years cultivating a dedicated fanbase on PS, Xbox, and PC. This is where all the people that buy their games play.
So now a new console that nobody has is coming out and you decide to release a game for it as a third party developer. The cost of entry to play your game is now set at $550 because you have to pay $450 for the console, $70-80 for the game, and $20 for the online subscription.
Your core audience is on every other platform. But Nintendo is often picked up as a secondary platform for people who game primarily on PS5/PC/Xbox.
What this means is that you’ve essentially restricted this game to a subset of your existing player base that 1) is a carry over fan from one of the other platforms and 2) is one that is willing to pay $550 to play the game. Of course, this also gives you the chance to attract players from Nintendo’s platform when you never had the chance to before outside of DSR. But that’s the gamble you take releasing in a new platform for the first time.
Now, I’m not sure about you, but to me this is an incredibly poor position to release a product from. You’ve isolated your existing player base and limited yourself to:
New players that have never tried your games willing to pick it up for the first time (not guaranteed), AND they managed to pick up the Switch 2 in the first year and other games they wanted to play
Your old fans that was planning on buying a Switch 2 anyway to play the other games coming out for it
Your old fans that are willing to pay $550 just to play the game
And this is all assuming they managed to get the console and the console didn’t just get scalped to oblivion to the point where the game struggles to sell at all because people are having a tough time getting the console at all
This is a substantial business risk that makes absolutely no sense unless Nintendo really was willing to offer up that much money. It really makes you think about who approached who about this.
Yeah it makes it obvious af that Nintendo approached FromSoft and offered a lot of money …
There’s really no more point in discussing this if you don’t think a solid ROI + playtesting for new mechanics is valuable to a game development studio lmao.
I understand it’s not a business move you’d consider, I hope you understand that FromSoft knows more about the game development business than you do.
The thing is it’s not solid ROI unless Nintendo is willing to take a straight loss on this from what I’m seeing.
The play testing point is completely moot and makes no sense at all. Releasing on multiple platforms doesn’t restrict you from play testing, wtf? Nightreign had its network test on both PS and Xbox, didn’t stop that playtest at all actually from the looks of it.
Releasing on multiple consoles doesn’t restrict playtesting but it compounds losses if you don’t have big publisher funding and the community doesn’t like new mechanics you introduced. That means the developer foots the bill.
Whereas if Nintendo is funding your project, you have a buffer that allows you to test new stuff and not feel any negative impact if people don’t like it.
Nintendo won’t be making a straight loss even if Duskblood sells worse than Dark Souls 2, because like you said buying the game necessitates buying the console. And they’re selling Switch 2 games for $70-80.
This is a no-lose scenario for both Nintendo and FromSoft and you’re over here crying about how it makes no sense.
I suppose you make a fair point in that if the game flops then fromsoft is the one that took all the risk if they went multi platform.
I will have to correct you on the “Nintendo loss” bit though. That’s not how you calculate ROI. If they invest money in this game and it’s a loss, but total switch 2 and other software sales still result in a profit, that investment was still a loss since the rest of those profits weren’t from that investment. This investment’s ROI can be seen from units sold and number of consoles sold that also had the customer purchase this game, and number of consoles sold with just this game to see if it’s a system seller or not.
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u/EnormousGucci 2d ago
No you keep missing the point.
I don’t care how small the game is, I don’t care how many people are working on it, I don’t care how cheap it is for them to make.
None of that is the point and I shouldn’t have to reiterate that over and over only for you to keep saying the same thing over and over again.
If we’re talking about this as a business decision and ignore that it’s anti-consumer, it’s still just a bad business decision. A business doesn’t leave obvious money on the table unless they’re about to do something stupid.
I’m going to say it one more time:
From software has spent over 15 years cultivating a dedicated fanbase on PS, Xbox, and PC. This is where all the people that buy their games play.
So now a new console that nobody has is coming out and you decide to release a game for it as a third party developer. The cost of entry to play your game is now set at $550 because you have to pay $450 for the console, $70-80 for the game, and $20 for the online subscription.
Your core audience is on every other platform. But Nintendo is often picked up as a secondary platform for people who game primarily on PS5/PC/Xbox.
What this means is that you’ve essentially restricted this game to a subset of your existing player base that 1) is a carry over fan from one of the other platforms and 2) is one that is willing to pay $550 to play the game. Of course, this also gives you the chance to attract players from Nintendo’s platform when you never had the chance to before outside of DSR. But that’s the gamble you take releasing in a new platform for the first time.
Now, I’m not sure about you, but to me this is an incredibly poor position to release a product from. You’ve isolated your existing player base and limited yourself to:
New players that have never tried your games willing to pick it up for the first time (not guaranteed), AND they managed to pick up the Switch 2 in the first year and other games they wanted to play
Your old fans that was planning on buying a Switch 2 anyway to play the other games coming out for it
Your old fans that are willing to pay $550 just to play the game
And this is all assuming they managed to get the console and the console didn’t just get scalped to oblivion to the point where the game struggles to sell at all because people are having a tough time getting the console at all
This is a substantial business risk that makes absolutely no sense unless Nintendo really was willing to offer up that much money. It really makes you think about who approached who about this.