Third-Party Publishers Disappointed With Nintendo Switch 2 Launch Sales

The Game Business has shared some interesting information of how third-party games that launched with the Nintendo Switch 2 have fared.

It seems that third-party games have performed slightly better at the launch of Nintendo Switch 2 as compared to Nintendo Switch. However, third-party publishers are not happy with the numbers. It was claimed that most sales were “very low” compared strong numbers that the Switch 2 hardware did worldwide, with one publisher saying that the numbers were ‘below our lowest estimates’.

A few reasons were theorized for the weak sales, such as aversion to Game-Key Cards and the fact that most of the third-party launch slate was made up of ports from PlayStation and Xbox.

Also, a couple of numbers were shared, giving a better idea on how third-party titles performed:

• 62% of Switch 2 physical game sales in the US (launch week) were from first-party games, excluding the Mario Kart World Bundle (Circana)
• 48% of Switch 2 physical game sales in the UK (launch week) were from first-party games, excluding the Mario Kart World Bundle (NielsenIQ)
• 86% of Switch 2 physical game sales in the UK (launch week) were from first-party games, including the Mario Kart World bundle (NielsenIQ)
• By comparison, for the launch of Switch 1, 89% of UK physical game sales were from first-party games (NielsenIQ)
• And for the launch month of Switch 1 in the US, 81% of US physical game sales were from first-party games (Circana)
• CD Projekt’s Cyberpunk 2077 was the best-selling third-party game during the launch of Switch 2, beating launch sales of CD Projekt’s The Witcher 3 on Switch 1 (NielsenIQ)
• Sega was the No.3 biggest publisher on Switch 2 at launch (Circana)
• When it comes to games released both physically and digitally, over 80% of Switch 2 game sales came from physical retailers (data shared by publishers)

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