Forum - View topic

This Week in Games - Sony State of Play 2025

Capcom is a prime example to bring up since, not only could it afford it, but there have already been comments out of the company that RE9 will be a key card because of "business decisions." So yes, Capcom knows it could afford it, but is choosing to cut its costs. No surprise since digital games were supposed to be less costly than physical, yet the industry generally chose to charge the same price and keep the difference for itself.

We did have that comment about Star Wars Outlaws needing to use a key card because the read speed from those cartridges is too slow, which at a technical level is true. But, slow read speeds of the physical media has had a solution since the PS3 days. Install some or all of the data to the internal storage to help with load times. The game is still there on the physical media, but also takes advantage of internal storage. It makes for a nice excuse to avoid the more expensive production costs, and saying it's downloads or nothing is about what I would expect from a business that has said that we should get used to not owning our games.

Guardians of Azuma ended up being the first game I bought for Switch 2. I was already interested, and Marvelous committing to games on cartridge was a clincher. Also, they did pleasantly surprise me by including a little booklet with it.

Capcom is a prime example to bring up since, not only could it afford it, but there have already been comments out of the company that RE9 will be a key card because of "business decisions." So yes, Capcom knows it could afford it, but is choosing to cut its costs. No surprise since digital games were supposed to be less costly than physical, yet the industry generally chose to charge the same price and keep the difference for itself.

We did have that comment about Star Wars Outlaws needing to use a key card because the read speed from those cartridges is too slow, which at a technical level is true. But, slow read speeds of the physical media has had a solution since the PS3 days. Install some or all of the data to the internal storage to help with load times. The game is still there on the physical media, but also takes advantage of internal storage. It makes for a nice excuse to avoid the more expensive production costs, and saying it's downloads or nothing is about what I would expect from a business that has said that we should get used to not owning our games.

Considering Nintendo is having no problem with selling on proper cartridges, I say: take the L, cough up, and optimize properly. GKCs are a bust.

One can only hope that if the DW3 remaster has a dub, it lives up to the glory of the original.

Couldn't this just be the usual case of "nobody buys third party games on Nintendo consoles" as well? Looking over at the weekly Famitsu sales numbers pretty much the only big selling games on Switch 2 are the new exclusives. Bananza and Mario Kart. Daemon x Mahcina Titanic Scion wasn't a game key card and it sold terribly on the Switch 2 because I imagine most people bought it on PC or another platform. Using Nintendo as a measuring stick to judge third parties never works.

AiddonValentine wrote:

Considering Nintendo is having no problem with selling on proper cartridges, I say: take the L, cough up, and optimize properly. GKCs are a bust.

Couldn't this just be the usual case of "nobody buys third party games on Nintendo consoles" as well? Looking over at the weekly Famitsu sales numbers pretty much the only big selling games on Switch 2 are the new exclusives.

-Koei-Tecmo: I see we have all the proper food groups, save for Ninja Gaiden (because they decided that needed MS involved because...I'm going to assume a bunch of money was involved)

In this week's column, we JUST discussed how Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar reached 500,000 sales in less than a month. That game is only available across Steam, Switch and Switch 2. That means that, whatever the percentage of those current sales are the physical copies, a not-insubstantial amount of those sales are on Switch/Switch 2. By extension, a not-insubstantial amount of those sales are physical.

People definitely buy third-party titles on Nintendo consoles. I have no idea why anyone argues otherwise.

FinalVentCard wrote:

In this week's column, we JUST discussed how Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar reached 500,000 sales in less than a month. That game is only available across Steam, Switch and Switch 2. That means that, whatever the percentage of those current sales are the physical copies, a not-insubstantial amount of those sales are on Switch/Switch 2. By extension, a not-insubstantial amount of those sales are physical. People definitely buy third-party titles on Nintendo consoles. I have no idea why anyone argues otherwise.

I mean, criminy, that was dead for twenty years when the Gamecube version of Soucalibur and Resident Evil 4 did very well. Then they got Monster Hunter...man, that got huge and even now Nintendo gets unique entries in the franchise. And lest we forget, the Switch has been THE place for indie games this generation with a lot just having a PC and Switch version if they go multiplatform. Fact of the matter is, if third parties don't sell that seems to be more on them than Nintendo. It feels more like people WANT to be true because the idea of a well-rounded library is somehow bad?

Sure, RE4 did great, Soulcaliber 2 was great... but a lot of other mainstream titles just flat-out passed on the GameCube. (For good reason: developing for the GameCube was hard.)

My assumption was always that, if that was the case, it’s probably due to all of the non-gamers who got suckered into the Wii hype (like my grandmother, somehow) despite not really playing games. The kinds of people who would never buy a Zelda or Metroid Fire Emblem for themselves, let alone the ports of Okami or Resident Evil or The Force Unleashed.

Dunno what the Switch numbers look like, but just speaking colloquially, I’ve seen so many people talk about it as an ideal “second platform,” and seen so many studios go out of their way to port to the Switch, that I have to imagine ithirdy-party software sold fairly well on it..

Eh... the GameCube might not be the best example. The few bits of third-party support were stellar, but the GameCube still lacked a lot of options. Sure, RE4 did great, Soulcaliber 2 was great... but a lot of other mainstream titles just flat-out passed on the GameCube. (For good reason: developing for the GameCube was hard.) And Nintendo is a great platform for indies now, but there were certainly a few years during the Wii and Wii U era where that was not the case. (And even now, there's something to be said about how the eShop buries worthwile games amidst all of the AI rip-offs).

Nintendo is way better about stuff now, for sure, and the idea that the Switch is lagging behind in third party support hasn't been true for a bit. But Nintendo did have trouble, and that trouble didn't end until relatively recently (as in, within the past decade).

In regards to people saying the Switch, and now its successor, is more of a companion system, I think that depends and it's really difficult to quantify, just in Japan the original Switch sold more units than the PS4 and PS5 combined, I'm sure that many people are happy with having just a Switch 1 or 2