Nintendo has announced that digital sales across its platforms are now higher than ever thanks to consumer trends. Plenty of people appear to be purchasing digital games on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 so its only logical that the same would happen on the Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo 3DS.
I would also like to touch on the progress we have made for our download sales. This figure shows the download sales of digital content for dedicated video game platforms compared to past years. Sales through the second quarter were the highest in our history for a six month period. Download sales for Nintendo Switch highly contribute to increase of total download sales.
Note: FY = Fiscal year (April through March of the following year)
Does anyone know (factual data). What the difference is when comparing revenue to download digital games and physical retail games?
How much of a profit does a company receive from digital?
In the States the ratio is more or less 50/50 in the industry as a whole. More or less. Europe I don’t know. Nintendo is so secret about this stuff
Well there are some variations to consider. Is it 1st or 3rd party? With both physical and digital, there’s a license paid to the platform for the ability to make games on that system (Nintendo in this case). Obviously Nintendo doesn’t have to pay themselves a fee, but their games are the same price. Further, in physical there’s a retailer’s cut (When I worked at Gamestop they said it was about $8 for a new $60 game). So, does digital also have a “retailer’s” cut? I’m not sure, but in either case the profit margin is higher for Nintendo because they don’t have to pay that either. Then there’s manufacturing who’s cost very by a number of factors itself, and is particularly hard to guess at without more data about the Switch’s physical cartridges.
So digital is clearly a higher margin for anyone, especially first party because they get to cut out all three, but exactly how much higher is going to vary based on a platform and its owner.
Seems like good news.
You know what would increase digital sales even more? Virtual Console.
Get those Game Boy games on the Switch, pronto!
https://youtu.be/QGE2uAJ4ZG4
Second it. Pokemon VC with Pokemon Bank app on Switch will make it a grand universal console. :)
You’re welcome, Nintendo. *got LoZ:BotW & SMO digitally* Gonna be pretty expensive for those that don’t mind paying those prices for the higher data Micro SD Cards. Of course, those people probably have plenty of money to burn, anyway, so it won’t be much of an issue for them. Hopefully 1 128gb Micro SD Card will be enough to store all the games I want on Switch. Good thing I’m sticking to my exclusives only strategy with Switch so 1 should be enough.
Oh wait. 6 month period which means only my purchase of SMO counts since I got BotW in March which was over 6 months ago.