Game devs scramble to join Nintendo Switch 2 gold rush

Nintendo switch 2 is here we have a new Mario Kart a new Donkey Kong Nintendo's answer Discord and about 1,000 third party games how are analysts feeling about the price what does retail think and does anyone even buy third party games on Nintendo all this and More in today's episode of the game business [Music] show hello and welcome to the game business show your Guide to the going on in the global video game industry uh we've only been going for about a week now and if this is your first show do head to the game.com and check out some of the coverage we've done we've interviewed Netflix games we've interviewed the co-founder o of Blizzard we've revealed the potential impact of GTA 6 on the market we've spoken to numerous leading game investors on the state of the market there's loads up there already so um do check out the gus.com um this is our news and Analysis show we do this once a week and each week I invite a special guest to co-host the show with me and this week it's the writer host producer from gamespop Giant

Bomb and the friends per second podcast it's Lucy James hi Lucy H know hi thank you so much for having me it's busy day yes very busy day very early start here on the West Coast a lovely 6 a. Nintendo director wake up to but it was a very interesting one I I don't know I don't think I really expected it to go the way it did but here we are oh okay well let let's go in what what surprised you I really thought there'd be more first party from Nintendo I was actually very surprised that they were quite restrained um in what they did have and what they did show obviously leading with Mario Kart world ending with Donkey Kong and Kirby and a couple of other things spe uh like speckled in throughout but it was very much this big showcase about hey we heard your complaints about third party on the switch and that's not the case for switch 2 look we've got Mia Zaki making an exclusive one for us yeah there there's your bloodborne um PC release I mean I you said I'm wearing an

Elden ring shirt as as we speak but yeah it was a very interesting direct I think obviously the big elephant in the room was they didn't announce price but they did announce it shortly after and there's a lot of turmoil about tariffs and uh the global state of things so uh yeah we will definitely talk about that pricing I was I surpris well on the one hand you need to talk look at Nintendo holistically these days because I think we look at switch one when that launched and there was a Mario and Zelda and the Mario Kart and the Splatoon and it was it was really it was it was like a r rapid fire of video game um Giants switch 2 sort of goes from actually a successful console and if you look at the lineup for the year they've got Metroid Prime 4 uh which is cross generation they've got Pokemon Za which is cross generation they've got this Donkey Kong game they've got Mario Kart and actually that that's a pretty strong first party St when you look at it um you look at it that way but you're right I was expecting I think the lack of Mario something I've got a thing with

Mario Kart Mario Kart World looked amazing and I thought it looked brilliant um we talk about the price of it in a minute but um I always have a theory of Mario Kart that is actually everybody's second game but there has to be a first game and then it's everybody's second game by the way everybody's second game but yeah you normally need another game to bring people in and it was breath of the Wild for the switch Yeah and or it may have been Mario a see if you came in late might have been smashed by there might have been Animal Crossing but then then then you get Mario Kart as well right and so my so my thing with it was uh leading with Mario Kart seems a bit strong but it seems a lot more um involved this time with the uh uh open world exploration exploration re bits and yeah I said this on on Giant Bomb when we were recording and but I felt kind of half I I was excited about the concept of new marioart because I played so much of it when it originally came out and it is kind of one of those games that I always dipped back into but when they showed different costumes I felt like The Simpsons you know but she's got

a new hat with Malibu's DAC when I saw Peach with all the different costumes cuz I know that's the kind of stuff that I will go for um and I'm I'm excited about new cups new courses uh new characters to play as obviously but it it felt also like a very good vehicle ha no pun intended to segue into game chat the SE button and it's Discord like hey you know we we'll kick off with this game that's you know got multiplayer at the heart of it both local and online and then we can talk about the fact that we've Nintendo's invented Discord well I Nintendo's invented Zoom team meetings in Mario Kart um it was it but the thing is when Nintendo does do stuff like this and I know that there's a little bit of division online but it's a mainstream product switch it's is it's it's kids coming home from school jumping online and their friends and playing it it's very much that scene and I know that Gamers have a certain view on this stuff

um but when Nintendo do it is it's taking it to a different sort of audio the pap this is new but yeah it when when the big feature was we've got game chat I mean I had a few little things you notice they've G very red the cartridges are very red the boxes oh I don't like the box I don't like the box art I think it's too much red very red I also was a bit surprised by the lack of Ubisoft yes Star Wars Outlaws cropped up but no no rabids no um Just Dance was a surprising move n Ubisoft one be one of the first ones to make a big like we are supporting this from day one I'm sure they are it's just they didn't they didn't get much of a starring role in um in the direct I don't know if that to do with them their current situation yeah bigger fish to fry I guess making sure that assassins gets out the door and that the stuff with 10cent gets squared away but yeah I agree it was very surprising not to see more Ubisoft support EA was there at Vol Force yeah k 2 had like five

games yeah here's the thing actually the one that I was most impressed one thing that I think from a business angle talks a lot about where Nintendo is today versus where they are 2017 is the fact that they launched their big game outside of Mario Kart was Donkey C and we talk about the switch one success by how many units of game consoles it sold to on 150 million now they they're probably going to become the biggest Nintendo console of all time um but actually what is a real indicator of how big Nintendo has got is how big their brands have become so Mario is bigger today than it was you know eight years ago much bigger um Zelda you know Zelda breath of the wild has sold I think it's now three times as many units might even been four actually as the previous bestselling Zelda game before this generation which was um Twilight Princess um that franchise is tripled in size Luigi's mansion's tripled in size Animal Crossing's doubled in size Mario Kart's doubled in size like as a Fran ches have got bigger Nintendo have taken

them into movies they've taken them into theme parks in fact Nintendo's slate last year we talk about it being quite release late back in 2024 for Nintendo with Echoes of wisdom being probably the biggest game they released the Zelda game but actually they also released a museum and an AR and an alarm clock and an expansion to a theme park and that is what they are today they are um they are games company but they are an entertainment business they are a new Disney and when you start looking at the games that haven't yet gr every franchise grew Pikman grew Fire Emblem grew Kirby grew but when you look at the brands actually Nintendo still got to develop Metroid to a smaller extent not the biggest brand in the world but um Metroid dreads did okay did pretty good actually but didn't radically changed that Series so there Metro Prime 4 might be a big bet for them but actually Donkey Kong there wasn't a original Donkey Kong game on the last generation of the switch one generation the current generation yeah this is a big KNE Donkey Kong game they've actually expanded their theme park with a Donkey Kong

theme park expansion Donkey Kong had a major role in the Mario movie he's getting a movie yeah so they are they are growing that IP and this is the game it's normally we see it the other way around normally we see the game come first and they develop the IP here where they are they they've been growing Don Kong as a as a as a character over the multiple Entertainment Properties I guess and now this is the game play and that's what what Nintendo is about that's why I felt between Don banan is interesting but you know where was a 3D Mario I everyone think we're all expecting it and um and it was missing I know but I mean look I'm kind of not glad because I would love another 3D Mario but also at the point where my interest in those other brands that particular like I wouldn't gravitate towards is now peaked and I honestly don't think it I be playing a Donkey Kong game if you know like an older version of Nintendo I think Nintendo has been very good at crafting its image raising the profile of these titles and

I properties and then you know ending on a Donkey Kong game that normally I don't know if I would have been that interested in but now I'm like oh Donkey Kong maybe this is the time because I never I never really grew up with Nintendo that's the thing and so look at me now number one Donkey Kong oh yeah and it's a different Donkey Kong it's the first redesign they've had since rare got their hands on the um on the franchise back in 1994 which is a so it's it's it's a it's a relaunch for that for that that character so I think that was quite an interesting thing from a business angle in terms of what Nintendo doing um in terms of the price hello I'm just going to pause my chat with Lucy for a moment because something significant happened shortly after we recorded our show and I felt it important to add it in here and that significant thing was of course the US government's tariffs it has imposed upon the world those included a 46% tariff on Goods coming out of Vietnam when Nintendo switch 2 is manufactured plus a 24% tarff from Japan where Nintendo

switch 2 cartridges are made it's possible even likely Nintendo had baked in the potential impact of tffs into its pricing and if that's the case Nintendo appears to have spread that cost globally rather than specifically on us consumers us is Nintendo's biggest Market of course it's possible they didn't do that and that pricing may need to increase again in the US we will have to see but I wanted to make sure I added that in now I shall unpause and get back to our chat with Lucy uh so I think the price of the console is fine how much is it in the UK it's three 396 pounds yeah $450 in America three 330 for the Japan region locked version yeah that's weird um the um analyst beforehand that everyone was expecting between 399 and 499 399 was what they was would have been a good really good price and $499 would have been um all that's quite high so they sort of going in the middle it's one of those things that like analysts haven't shifted that you know

Amare still expects 13 million units sold in 2025 so Cara still expects 4.3 million units sold in the US this year That Remains the Same I actually emailed Michael paa you'll love this Lucy so I email Michael paor every analyst I emailed came back with this long sort of um q&as and deep insight into how they see the switch Market Michael pter replied with this this just this 18 million in 12 months that was it and I said CL up done I emailed him afterwards and said uh um are you anything changed now with the price went no it's he thinks this they they think it's fine yeah the price of the games though I mean this is where things surpris me a little bit um yeah um the key okay there is an element of $60 in 2017 is now just under $80 today so there is an element of inflation um it's still though whether or not it's justifiable for a pure numbers point of view business

point of view that doesn't stop it from being a little bit hard to swallow where people's money is so tight and things are so difficult the thing that surprises me the most actually is the fact that Nintendo have gone cheaper with the digital games over the physical games in the past comp Publishers and platform holders have been fearful of doing this because they don't want to lose shelf space at retailers retailers would be less likely to bought a game that was cheaper to download than it is to buy in a box but here Nintendo gone out it right from the start and this is actually a real opportunity for Nintendo digital if you look at sales of new games on Nintendo switch across Europe 80% of game sales on Nintendo switch for for new launches um 80% of them are physical well so that's obviously games that are Rel digital and physically digital is one of the driving forces behind the revenue growth for the games companies over the last decade and Nintendo's still got loads and loads of room to grow here and obviously nor that digital download sales but you could also DLC and microtransactions are part of that so encouraging users to whether

they're doing that for this reason or not if it does encourage users to download more over buying physical it's a potential win for Nintendo even if they don't sell as many um switch con switch 2 consoles or they sold switch one consoles also the physical games markets had a really tough time and there were fewer and fewer retailers selling games some retailers only sell Nintendo games these days and Funko pops and Funko Pops Funko pops and Nintendo games basically is what it is um Lego sometimes um so there's probably a need for Nintendo to try and convert users from physical to digital purely to protect themselves from fading retail base but I was I was taken a back by it and there's some um understandably um Angry comments I think see on social media around that pricing but this is Nintendo I don't know how much how much the alarm clock was in the US but that was not a cheap alarm clock alarmo yeah I it's also if you look into the pricing for switch 2 is what what the upgrade paths and everything for

things um like Zelda that's going to have uh more expanded features and switch to and putting a price on that is also rubbing people up the wrong way when it comes to buying switch games though I mean both physical and digital I don't think any other company holds their value like Nintendo no like it is so rare to see Nintendo games on sale digitally or physically uh even go to C or another secondhand retailer they always much much higher than Xbox or Playstation and so I think that's kind of also makes it a harder pill to swallow when you're like well you've kind of been selling mostly full price for all this time last time Nintendo charged something that consumers went this is too expensive was the 3DS and Nintendo reacted to that immediately so if it if it consumers don't swall I me and the prices aren't the same obviously I think it was um $80 Plus for Mario Kart uh uh world but Donkey Kong is less money um is is cheaper so it does feel

like maybe that it's specific to that title but I guess I guess the thing is with the physical prices being so much higher than digital I wanted to find out how do physical stores feel about it and I had a chance to grab a few minutes with Nick Aaron who is the managing director of game in the UK to get his reaction and this is what he said hello Nick welcome to the show so we've just seen the switch to video um what did you what did you make of it uh I thought it looked fantastic I think it's uh everything that we wanted it to be right it's uh the first time uh ever Nintendo have have done a newer version of their console you know a two rather than a brand new one Al together um and it done everything we wanted to do you know new features obviously better per better games better graphics better looking games um I thought it was great I thought it was brilliant uh can't wait for it to launch um I thought the price point was good as well um a lot of um people guessing out there it was going to be really expensive and I think

considering um you know the next generation of conso to come along and the standard version still being under 400 um I think it's great I think it's going to be fantastic really really pleased with it there's some of speculation that maybe the tariffs had something to do with the pricing level I didn't think it was too bad the hardware to be honest no not the hardware no um obviously the software obviously Mario Kart at £75 um is uh an expensive it seems expensive but I I was a Nintendo 64 customer and I remember walking into wwor and spending 50 on uh Mario 64 and that was 30 well nearly 30 years ago um so you think of it like that you know you think of it like that you know games and and games need to get more expensive I mean I say this quite a lot you know if we're as a retailer we're selling games for the same price as we were selling them 10 years ago um our prices keep going up as as does Publishers prices keep going up you know the price of games does need to increase so um you know bold move 75 pound um but you know

it does need to happen yeah I remember buying turac on the N64 for £70 and uh virtual racing on the Mega Drive that was another one that was like like 70 back in the day as well you know I was surprised to see the digital game prices cheaper than the physical game pric yeah I mean look you know um it's a challenge I think cuz that is a bold move um you know Nintendo have our dominantly um physical um and are proud to be physical um and uh that to make that move before PlayStation and Xbox that digital games will be cheaper Than Physical um is a bold move and I think it will it will be a bit of a challenge um to you know to us as a as a retailer um and also I think you know a bit of a tough message for a customer that you know there's difference in prices if they prefer physical so be interesting to see how it goes uh um you know it's

not going to stop us in terms of the support we're going to give um switch 2 and and Nintendo um and hopefully it won't have too much of an effect on physical sales because um obviously retailer physical is much is important to me but you know I'm a strong believer that gaming um is an you know it's an important um media that needs to stay physical you know spending 75 on a product £70 on a product needs that tangible value that can sit on a shelf be your collection um so hopefully this uh strategy doesn't doesn't uh impact that I has to wonder what motivated the decision whether it's the cost of the cartridges or maybe it was the US government tariffs and they're trying to protect themselves from that I mean we could probably Hazard loads of guesses desire to push digital more but yeah as I know Nintendo like a really big supporter of physical retail exactly where because their audience is a little bit broader and it's important to them so indeed yeah I mean you know I mean you I think you know in the generation that we're in especially Xbox and

PlayStation at this point in time everything should be a lot cheaper than when it launched but it's gone up the world is so much different to any other console cycle um and Nintendo must be facing the same challenges and to be a cartridge based format obviously bigger cartridg is required um than on the switch for the size of the newer games I I get it I understand it um it's just a bold move to make yeah yeah well um and and and what's you know obviously I'm not sure if you can give me a number what does stock look like are you look are you feeling good about it or is it yeah I mean look stockies there's never enough of a new console but that's what makes them exciting um it's going to be tight when we go on pre-order we'll be gone within you know minutes uh not hours within minutes I assume um yeah it's going to be there'll be there'll be huge demand um I see some of our competitors have gone live already and sold out um so uh yeah I think that the the demand is there and there won't be enough enough stot to fulfill it so people are going to need to be quick um and you talked about yeah the doct

was great but any particular standout products are the things that surprised you think well that'll do well or that excited you as a yeah I really liked where Mario world has gone um you know you think Mario's been around for a long time and to be off track um and that whole much more of exploring and sort of like you know driving between the tracks and the open world bring it much more to a you know modern expection expectations of gaming nowadays so now I really like that um I love the chat feature as well you know when people were playing different games they can pop up like like now me and you are chatting now and you sit there playing whether you play together the same game but not together or a different game completely um I thought that was really really cool when you know really you really really Nintendo to bring something new to the market that we've not we've not seen before so that was really good to see yeah I was I thought maybe you might be excited for Donkey Kong but only because Nintendo been you know developing their IP their franchise their brands Donkey Kong is

probably the one they haven't fully developed yet absolutely right yeah no I think you know on the switch that was just you know remakes and um you know we've not had a brand new Donkey Kong game for a long long time so no it's was really good we all watched it together in the office we sitting there and uh and we were really yeah some really big Donkey Kong fans uh that are really pleased to see that as the closing closing product so no you're right that's a that's a good one as well hopefully some good merchandise to go with that new design um well thanks Nick that's all I needed to grab before I know you've got to get back to getting the pre-orders live and getting that sorted out so um thank you for your time and good and that was Nick there from uh game um yeah was there anything else that stood out I tell you what the the from software is one of the other hero titles was was not on my bingo card no who was publishing that is it Nintendo is it from s themselves because I don't think Bandai is on that trailer at all no when they did say it was exclusive to Nintendo switch um I wouldn't be surprised if it is

Nintendo publishing it um but we have a big section later on all about third party uh opportunity there on switch but um that was the game that I did not see coming at all and there was there was Nintendo had another game I forgotten the name of it now where you use the controllers like mice that was classic Nintendo odity oh yes um dragon not dragon drop uh drag Dragon Drive yeah that's it it would build like this this generation's arms meet rocket League I've got the spash brothers director's name um oh zakar yeah when Sakurai said I want to make a new Kirby Air Riders game I'm sure Nintendo W can you not can you can you do us another smash he's like no no I made a whole video series on YouTube about that no but you know he can do what he wants um um so um that that's certainly cly interesting I as I say Nintendo there's

a lot of conversation around um will switch one switch two do better than switch one we've been asking developers most everyone we've spoken to we've had this fun question at the end of our interviews where we go we ask a bunch of fun questions and one of them is we'll switch to out sell switch one and the answers are almost all know yeah and there's good reasons for people to be skeptical about that switch one sold obviously huge amounts of consoles but there's a few advantages switch one has and switch 2 won't have one of those advantages is um the pandemic which is still was weird to say yeah you could not Escape Animal Crossing yeah what landed at the you know it was a generational shift for Playstation Xbox they were going from one console to the other so then they weren't really in a position to capitalize on that Nintendo did I think they sold over 30 million massive and and peripherals for them too because ringfit came out at the end was the end of 2019 yeah and then in the pandemic no one could go to the gym anymore and ringfit became extremely hard to find for months it was a massive year for Nintendo and that accelerate Sal them for two solid years it was a

real big um driver for them the Animal Crossing you mentioned yeah it was just real big the other one is that because their previous console failed because the wiii was a failure they had this Bank of games that not many people have played they could dust off spruce up and release like a triaa title like Mario 3D World Plus Bowser's Fury is was a big hit Mario Kart 8 obviously was that game and breath of the wild was a Wii U title there's there's there's so many of the big hits on uh switch were titles from the previous generation they were a to dust off they don't really have that privilege anymore they don't have a huge Bank of old games I mean Nintendo would always re-release old games and Spruce them up that's just what best part of their MO but they don't have it don't have an easy you know a Mario game sitting in their back pocket that nobody played um so they won't have that Advantage either so I think there's a lot of expectation this might be a tougher generation for them they're leaning increasingly on third parties they are working with third parties on original games as well as games based on their IP as well I know that um they've also got to try and manage the fact

they've got a lot of switch one active switch one players and convert those across so there's people that expect switch one to switch two to do as well as switch one I think that is obviously eight years is a long time a generation's a long time so anything can happen um where I'm where I'm optimistic about Nintendo though is the fact that digital growth is so is so low they've got Financial opportunities there commercial opportunities there and it is in those movies you know we already know one of their big releases next next year is a Mario movie the year later it's a Zelda movie um that's that that's what the company's heading towards um really what switch to needs to do is continue Nintendo's ability to develop its Brands it's a really corporate thing to say no but I you are completely right you know people do form attachments to the box but really you know they form attachment to the characters and they're going to associate hey Mario Zelda Donkey Kong Bowser whoever with the box and that just you know Rising time All Ships Etc let's talk about the

third party thing that was I could just absolute onslaught of third party games can we start with how little squishy time Hollow night silk song got a game that's kind of becoming a meme in the way that it just you know it was supposed to be out what was it it was in a summer game Fest showcase that that Xbox put on and they said all of these games will be coming out in the next 12 months the 12 months came and went and then I think we had another year on top of that and there have been r LS and then oh it just quietly pops up for a few five five 10 seconds and then goodbye definitely 20 25 still I was surprised by a lot of what I thought it was quite adult stuff yes I think this is like hardcore gamer stuff and I uh you know not just the from software game but obviously elering was there cyber Punk was there the one no the one that surprised me most because Nintendo is doing a tie-in is Hitman world of assassination incredible game one of my favorite games I think of all time but the fact that they're doing Mario and

Luigi themed items to go in that game is so surprising to me because we talk about how Nintendo has been using its brand and they are always so careful and so familyfriendly into to put you know I don't know little a little green suit or whatever in uh in Hitman was quite a surprise for me yes was some that's i' argue that's even more surprising when they gave them guns in their own Rabbids here's the thing I last year I interviewed thoraxis and it was around civilization 7 and they if you remember civiliz it was only a couple of months ago civilization 7 came out the same time on switch as it came out on all the other platforms now normally they spis release their games on PC and then reported to other machines so I asked them about this and the switch was the reason why they did that multiformat release so loads of people bought civilization six on the switch and according to fexes a lot of those players were people that already owned it on PC they just wanted take it on the go with them yeah it was a big

iPad game too right I know a lot of people who played save on iPad yeah so they started to see this phenomena of actually the people who are playing Civ on these platforms it isn't a new audience there is a new audience there obviously as well but actually it's the existing audience as well that just want to keep playing and when engagement is such an important metric for game developers these days um you've got these game companies that are going all hang on let's let's P these games to switch because um and of course steam deck Taps into that phenomenon as well the ability to be able to take your core games on the go um it's not say that audience is an audience of slightly more hardcore Gamers it's also the fact that I often forget about this because I I always relate things to myself when I grew up and I had to say to my mom I want a new Mario Kart game my mom would go what's wrong with an old Mario Kart game yes my kids don't need to say that to me because I know why you want a new Mario Kart because I am a gamer I grew up in that generation and if you look at some of the bestselling G third party games on switch well games that did very well on switch GTA the original trilogy

do they do really well on switch there's not something that would have been the case 20 years ago on Nintendo platforms then and I my theory is those are parents those are U who have kids they bought them games console for their kids but they used to game as well and they've got so you've got these a an audience of people now on Nintendo probably didn't have generation or two ago who are more interested in these sort of experiences so I I think there is an audience for this stuff I'm surprised to see developers going putting those sort of games on there and I think they've seen success for it I don't think they're expecting p PlayStation numbers or Xbox numbers but it is an opportunity for yeah for example I was a big OverWatch player but I would never ever play it on switch or I'd never play Apex on Twitch because it always used to be the worst place to play your third party games and so it is so interesting to me that they are really doubling down on third party and like having people like Randy Pitchford having Joseph Faris and having folks from Forex to come in and say hey no no no we're we're building stuff for the

switch 2 it's going to be great please play on switch 2 and so it's I think I need to kind of unshackle that in my brain that maybe switch 2 is a more viable place to play because I've been enjoying stuff on Steam deck for a couple years I think it's for fans of Borderlands or fans of cyber Punk if you if you're a fan of cyber Punk on PlayStation 5 and you're thinking of getting a switch to you might go it's okay I know it's not going to be the better version which was The Witcher version on switch one the switcher yeah so it's like I like that game and it gives me the ability to play with play outside of the home or in different environments actual fact I had a chat with Matthew B um who is a a video game analyst I you know him he um he did a huge presentation about uh the state of the games industry early in the year he F the switch to was an opportunity developers so I actually asked him um considering how dominant Nintendo is on its own platforms whether he thinks switch 2 uh is really that much of an opportunity and actually this is what he said it's important to put this into numbers right the average console usually has about for every 10 units of

software that are purchased only one is made by the platform themselves in the case of Nintendo it's nearly six in every 10 is made by Nintendo and that's even excluding some of their you know de facto second party relationships those who only produce for the Nintendo switch and so that is to say that for the most part the second most successful console of all time perhaps soon to be the most successful console of all time they are not even per se buying it for the Forum Factor Innovations not that those aren't important but they are multi buyant because Nintendo has made some of the best titles of all time and an incredible volumes and you can only get them on the device and the device is Affordable it's not clear how many people are saying I want a portable games device or how many people are saying that I'm looking to play multiplatform AC crossplatform titles and the switch is the device that I'd like to do it on they're mostly saying I need to I want to and the only games I'd like to play are Nintendo switch obviously many of us have all consoles and so that model is the most important

or that strategy that success is the most important thing that Nintendo has for the Nintendo switch 2 and so we should not think of the fact that the Nintendo switch 2 can run most third-party titles sufficiently as this massive new blue ocean opportunity for third party Publishers at the same time nearly all of the most popular titles globally have not been available on the Nintendo switch for the last eight years it's been out that means that many of the highest spending highest engagement youngest and therefore lifetime brand building consumers have been inaccessible and so that's definitely a meaningful increase opportunity for third party Publishers and yet at the same time it's going to be available to all of them so it's now going to be a new hotly contested platform as opposed to you know potentially 100 million customers you couldn't reach before but n can which is to say I think it's going to be mixed that's Matthew bu um video game an I think he's probably spot on there I was going to say the same thing

obviously um but um you know the switch no one's looking at the switch to from a third party perspective thinking this is going to deliver us huge growth but there is there is an audience there that they they haven't reached it is an opportunity for them Matthew B is right about the dominance of Nintendo games on Nintendo switch but actually things have started to shift a little bit in that area um so I delved into Nintendo's financials uh on this um and yes look if in if you take the UK for instance nearly 60% of all games sold on Nintendo switch were published by Nintendo and nine of the top 10 bestselling switch games of all time are Nintendo games the only outlier is Minecraft that's Neilson IQ gfk entertainment data and Nintendo's own data also shows the number of million selling titles published on switch in a given year so in the 2020 Financial year there were 27 million selling switch titles and Nintendo was responsible for 18 of them even in the current Financial year for the year ending December 2024 there have been n not the year so the nine months ending

December 2024 there have been 19 million Sellers and 12 of them were Nintendo games so Nintendo is dominant on this platform in a way that PlayStation isn't on its own however if you look at the more recent years Nintendo has been sharing some data around sales of box games plus digital versions of box games so digital only games are not included in this data um and in the 2018 Financial year which is the first four year of the of the Nintendo switch Nintendo published titles accounted for over 65% of all games sold on that platform so in the first year Nintendo dominant like third part is only accounted for 35% of sales fast forward to 2021 and actually third party games started to overtake Nintendo games um 2021 2022 2023 and 2024 thirdparty games have accounted for between 52 to 53% of games sold on Nintendo switch again that doesn't include digital only releases um I thought what about digital only releases what about the digital space in particular um by the way it does include download versions of box

games but digital I went to aair and aair conducted some analysis of the ESOP and here we can see third party games competing really closely with Nintendo's own games I'm my ass assumption on this is because third party games are discounted more heavily on Nintendo ehop than Nintendo Zone games but um The Firm tracked how many top 10 appearances games have had on the US ehhop between January 2023 and March 2025 or the end of March 2025 and the number one game was actually third party title it was Minecraft it had um uh it had the most uh Chart top 10 chart appearances and the top 10 exactly half of the top 10 are third party games the other four being stardew Valley Among Us overcooked and Hogwarts Legacy and if you go further down the Lich just Dan is in there that's had um 24 weeks in the top 10 FIFA 23 spent 14 weeks um there's loads of data on this and if you want to go on the game business.com I sort of share a lot of it with a bit of graphs on it so yes yes look having still Nintendo having even 40% of the of the

market on their own console is means that the opportunity is less on switch than it is on Playstation Xbox but this idea that third party games can't succeed on Nintendo platforms is actually over the last few years started to really change the games like hogw Legacy and the Lego games and um Just Dance they've all done really well but even some of the hardcore games are starting to do really well so there is opportunity on switch you can see why developers are excited um I did a lot of talking there I got exced by data ly that is what I do I love it I love it when you get excited about data no I mean that's the thing it's just I I suppose as a hardcore gamer my perception is that like I it's switch is the one place where I don't want to play third party I want to play it all bells and whistles on my PC for example however I cannot understate how great the convenience is especially when traveling or you know watching something on the TV and I have my my second screen and I have my switch or I have something else going on and I think that is wonderful I think one issue is though discoverability in the eShop yeah uh

there is so much crap shovel Weare in there um and so you are going to have the same issue that you kind of see on Steam where is the same big names the same roughly top 10 kind of permeating through just because hey it's a recognizable name the brand is is big enough so you hit upon what I was going to say next which is this yes the eShop is notoriously not a not a brilliant Digital Store I'm hoping they refresh it for the new console they didn't say that in the direct but um I I actually spoke to I tried to speak to a loot of video game developers for this almost everyone I spoke to don't have Dev kits yet um one of them said to me that they were desperate for Dev kits so they would they get on early on the platform and the audience is most likely to try different things they want to get there basically uh before they're too late um they are getting de kits now they were a bit grumpy beforehand Nintendo being more responsive with them now they tell me I think they might already be too late you know one of the IND I spoke to talked about how backward compatibility and stuff means that um they're not

entirely sure what the real opportunity is for them on switch they do switch two they think they're excited by the machine they just don't necessarily think they're going to see a big step up over switch one in terms of their sales performance because um backwards compatibility because of a stronger release slope from third parties it's going to be quite busy that direct was busy it was packed packed with games and big games um AAA games and there's going to be loads more of those that haven't weren't didn't they didn't didn't able to fit into that 60 Minute video it is a congested market so um so for those developers that are you know coming in a bit late who are having to sort of try and join the Gold Rush now I think we're not going to see what happened with switch one where games like snake pass could do huge units one of the only only games of note really released on that platform and that in those early months of that console it's the opposite situation now we've got lots and lots and lots and lots of games eShop discoverability isn't great um physical retail stores are fading away

discoverability is getting harder and harder you know I that was a stat I'd love to I'm love to get the stat here if you go on the Nintendo website and you go on the eShop and you look at how many 3DS games we released and how many Wii U games we released and how many switch games we released look it's not steam level 19,000 numbers but in it is a huge number 90,000 in a Year by the way I'm talking about steam um it's a huge number of games competing for attention in a very very competitive um Market so it is it's great the third part is on board it's exciting for Nintendo we've been here before Nintendo's CED third parties before to mixed results ah was that Wii U Wii U but even GameCube in GameCube remember they sold rare and they announced capcon five and they um uh did a deal with EA and it didn't really help them I think Nintendo want to get the balance right between having those strong third party titles um that can that can help keep things alive in between their big releases but also they need to keep living their big games they had a game

of month they released a game a month on switch which that's where the momentum came from I think they wanted to get two with switch to no this I mean this list is truly something for everyone and it is yeah I mean in I think of all the consoles all the platforms Nintendo is moving in the right direction to literally like take you from your very first game through to those franchises like Doom that you kind of grow up with and just kind of make sure it's all in one place for you and yeah I'm also a gast I I posted this on Blue Sky but it was 40 minutes into the direct and the killer app for me was yaka a zero director's cut because getting new content for Yakaz azero at this point is crazy to me but I am so excited about and genuine I was like oh is that the thing that's going to make me get a switch too I think it might be I really struggle with because I was really excited by that direct I really excited partly because they got GameCube games on it um and um uh I love Donkey Kong it's one of my favorite franchises and I sometimes have

this brain this business brain that tells me no it was missing this the prices are too high I'm bit worried about that and then I have the fan brain which is like it's brilliant it's amazing and I sometimes get it wrong I went to the switch one reveal and I loved it and then I came out and I wrote a piece that suggested that I think it was going to fail and um because I was looking at the state of the market I was looking at the performance the handheld Market I was looking at the um uh uh the specs of the console the price of everything the fact that only Zelda lach and Zelda's big but it's not that big well if it if it was the Hammersmith event I was there too and I remember Zelda running terribly and I remember coming out of that feeling quite oh is this is what they you on their bets on I don't know if you were in that Pub actually was Mee as Andy Robinson and CBG was at play Sonic at the time and there was a load of analysts and going PRS and we were all writing it off whilst also simultaneously pre-ordering it it was this um and it was this um and I thought it was a um and I and I kind of feel the same now like I have I'm looking at that pricing I'm looking at

the lack of a a killer Nintendo game outside of Mario Kart and maybe Donkey Kong is that I I don't know um I'm looking at um the fact this console doesn't really do that much new when when the A C button and magnets and um Mouse yeah 4K 100 120 frames per second on a Nintendo device that's actually you know what I did manage to get a hold of a developer to talk to me about the switch too um they they were a lot of them were nervous to talk about it but I managed to talk to virtuous now virtuous you probably haven't heard of them they are a um they're sort of they're known for COD development and porting and some of the games have worked on on switch some of them worked really well and some of them didn't um XCOM the outer worlds Dying Light near automat Dark Souls remastered the bar Shop collection LA Noir there's actually quite a long list anyway I spoke to virtues Rio uh Rio nakagawa I hope I got that right um who gave me uh his take on the switch his experiences with the switch 2 and um whether or not he thinks actually it might be easier or harder to Port game

to switch two than it was to switch one is what he said I believe there is a two aspects one strong point is the switch two is stronger platform than switch one we can apply less optimization for the performance and then loading time we usually spend a huge time of the the optimization um for ad content reducing um triangles or polygons or from the engineering the coding but this workload could be less for switch to but same time there is a risk or challenges I would say because the switch two they going to enhance the the mode play online mode I think we would have more we should apply more technical challenges and then also you know QA testing we should have a more um

heavy QA testing to make sure the functionality works properly and then also so the middleware switch to doesn't support yet I believe so we need to resolve um some of the the area that's supposed to have the middle middleware covers but but we need to resolve it by ourselves so this could be extra workload we would I would anticipate yeah and then maybe third point is it's good but you know I think architecture for the between switch one and two could be a bit similar similarity that they should have it so um I think the engineers we we have a lot of you know adaptation experience for the switch one in the past so we can utilize or those experience and then skill or

knowledges for the Ping uh this time I believe but well um switch 2 is not you know mature yet platform so we never knows how much potential challenges we will have it yeah yes as Rio there fromus um trying to I think it's very was very late for him um when I did that interview but um um he was basically saying that some of the extra function that's H the switch to that people want to introduce into that into the games um means that yes it might be easier to release games on it you might have to do so much optimization but there are other things that that come with the new platform and also you know if you can do more people will want to do more right they want to push the hardware so um whe it's it's still as challenging and um it's still still going to have its challenges in terms of bringing those games across but I suspect all of those those sort of companies are are going to be in demand quite a lot over the next few months as people rush to get their games on the platform yes I think even

just you know it's like the badge of honor having it in your trailer like switch to there you go like never forget Gollum was the first ever PS5 game yeah that what how how did that do um well as long as you weren't running his hair physics it would run kind of okay but his hair physics kept breaking it well I'm excited for switch 2 uh it's a big moment in the games it's been eight years since had a new Nintendo console it is isn't it isn't a huge Revolution on the console that happened before um you could argue that Nintendo doesn't need to um it still has largey has this weird hybrid Market to itself that it's created um but it's tough out there uh costs are going up um there's a lot of Uncertain in the economy around tariffs which is obviously a big conversation at the moment and the impact that's having but I think it should do pretty well I'm not expecting a collapse like the Wii U not necessarily expecting switch two num switch one numbers but I don't think nintend need to deliver that the key will be in the games as always you know

can they ignite people can they excite people um and uh and that is um that's to be seen yeah I I agree I was a little bit more ambivalent about the switch 2 until this morning's direct just because yeah it is the games I couldn't care less about what the box looks like under my TV except for the PS5 which I still think is bizarre looking but you know it's I'm not connected to a piece of Hardware I'm connected to the games and the experiences that I am going to experience through it um I think they're making a lot of I mean I I also kind of had my expectations in check just through rumors and leaks where it's just this is more like an upgraded switch rather than this huge leap in Hardware this huge leap in a generation I think that has kind of helped but I wonder how that is going to trickle through to people who are not living and breathing every single piece of news like we are I guess though this nint I think people hold Nintendo to different standards both lower and higher depending on the situation so Nintendo switch 2 I was

talking to someone about this before and they said isn't it just a Nintendo switch one pro and I asked why would they say that and they said well isn't it just faster G faster graphic better graphics more power and I went isn't that what every game's console yeah with Nintendo you expect something more you expect it what's the what's the gimmick and the gimmick this time is the mouse I think the leap between switch one to switch 2 is greater than the leak between PS4 and PS5 and yet no one's questioning PS5 as being a uh as as being next maybe they are maybe I'm just not in that circles um well it's coming out in June 5th it's going to cost um uh $450 in the US there's a Mario Kart bundle as well um and uh it's £396 p47 EUR it's not long now until we all get hands- on with it it's being demoed around the world as we speak um that's it that's all we have time for for today's the game business show thank you Lucy for joining us it was a pleasure to have you on thank you you uh we will be back next week with our feature show uh

we have Matthew Ball video game analyst is you saw a clip from that interview we have a huge interview with him on the uh on the games Market where it's heading what the opportunities are where the growth opportunities are um we also will be back as well next week for our new show um until then thank you for listening and we'll see you next time