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The story
With opening-week numbers showing just 60,000 units for Resident Evil Requiem and 30,000 for Elden Ring on Switch 2, 5ch users debated why big-budget third-party titles are underperforming on the console. Explanations ranged from Nintendo’s enduringly loyal fanbase, to the industry norm that a later port doing 10-20% of the original version’s sales counts as a win, to the possibility that existing owners are sticking with their PS5 or PC versions. At the same time, posters kept correcting each other over whether titles actually launched day-and-date, underscoring just how tricky simple sales comparisons can be.
What people said
Resident Evil Requiem: 60,000
Elden Ring: 30,000
It's not 'killing' anything — it's just that stuff sells fine as long as it's not a 'blockbuster.'
Go back to hell, you 'dog-made blockbuster.' (mocking wordplay swapping 犬/dog into 大作/blockbuster, jabbing at hyped third-party titles)
That's just the truth.
'What's a PlayStation?' That's the reality (lol). People go on about it being 'downgraded,' but to average folks who only know Nintendo (and don't care about anything else), there's no comparison to even make, lol
Happens all the time with PS games too — a mass free trial exposes the quality, and then 'nobody plays it even for free.'
That's the whole story — PlayStation's edge is fading even in third-party 'blockbusters.' It'll eventually get overtaken there too, just like with Falcom and Atelier games.
On top of that, third parties are probably realizing they can't expect new users to come to PS anymore.
Hyperdimension Neptunia isn't on a key card, you know? Go buy it!
So it's simply that nobody's interested, huh…
Because it's not a Nintendo game, that's why.
It's because Nintendo's own games are more fun and better known 😃
There's no title on Switch 2 that's outsold Elden Ring's 30 million copies.
For Switch-to-PlayStation ports it's even worse, with some cases coming in under 1%, let alone 10%.
It's true the day-and-date launches like Resident Evil and Onimusha feel underwhelming, but those are franchises born and raised on PlayStation, so building up an audience takes time.
I just hope Capcom takes the long view here.
But Pragmata isn't even a PlayStation-born franchise, and it still didn't sell on Switch 2, did it?
That's like saying you can't even count to 40. Don't be ridiculous.
Well, you've only got 20 fingers (and toes) to count with.
Both Elden Ring and Onimusha showed a 'red' (high) first-week sell-through rate in Famitsu's data, so it's certain they sold above what the makers expected.
This is a common misconception, but 'good sell-through rate = sold as well as the game company expected' isn't actually correct.
Shipment volume is driven by retailer orders, so even if it matches retailers' expectations, that doesn't mean the game company is satisfied.
No way. Persona 3 Reload on Switch 2 already flopped miserably.
With RPGs specifically, the Switch version tends to have the advantage in day-and-date releases, so you can't call it impossible.
If it's day-and-date, PC wins for sure. Persona 3 Reload on Switch 2 was a miserable flop at just 6,000 copies, while the Steam version sold as much as 1.9 million.
Wait, was Persona 3 actually a day-and-date release?
I looked it up and it was totally different from that. Did I mix it up with something else?
PS5: Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree Edition — 24,012 units (sitting unsold on shelves everywhere)
Switch 2: Elden Ring Tarnished Edition — 27,604 units (sold out nationwide, #1 on the Nintendo Store download chart)
Lol, PS5 didn't even win the day-and-date comparison to begin with.
Within about half a year, they put out a port so obviously botched and half-hearted you could tell just from the pre-release info.
Sorry, I don't know about Persona 3 since it wasn't day-and-date — I'm talking about day-and-date releases here.
Persona 3 wasn't day-and-date, but Persona 5 Royal's remaster was — and PC won by a landslide.
What's this 'Persona 5 remaster' you're talking about?
More chances for people to try it out isn't a bad thing, I guess, but did it actually accomplish anything? I wonder if it added even 10,000 units worldwide.
Glad you finally get it. So now you understand it's impossible for Switch 2 to win even in a day-and-date release, right?
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The “60,000 units” and “30,000 units” figures cited in the thread mainly come from domestic retail weekly sales tallies such as Famitsu’s data, and it’s worth noting these don’t include digital downloads or overseas sales. Switch 2’s installed base in Japan far exceeds the PS5’s, creating a structural advantage for Nintendo titles that isn’t visible from raw sales comparisons alone. Also, the “first-week sell-through rate” is the ratio of units sold to units shipped to stores, and a high sell-through rate doesn’t necessarily mean sales met the publisher’s own expectations — a point raised in the thread (post 88) that holds up as industry practice. Throughout the thread, posters repeatedly corrected each other over whether titles were actually released day-and-date, a recurring example of how conflating different release formats derails these kinds of discussions.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, “Geha”) thread “[Mystery] Why don’t third-party blockbusters sell on Switch 2…“
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