Listen now on Apple, Spotify or YouTube
In This Edition
- Switch 2 third-party data
- Summer Game Fest in numbers
- Guest Host: Chris Plante of Post Games
- Plus! Xbox/AMD, Mindseye, SAG-AFTRA and more
Hello there! Welcome back to The Game Business.
After a good six weeks of travelling around and working on events, it’s nice to get back into the normal rhythm of things. And that includes a full News and Analysis Show and Newsletter filled with fancy market data and exclusive stats. Now we’re talking.
The Show itself features guest host Chris Plante, the former editor-in-chief of Polygon who has just gone off to launch an independent show of his own (which you should definitely check out) called Post Games. Chris and I chat Post Games, alongside Switch 2, Summer Game Fest and some of the big stories of the last week.
You can listen to the full thing above, or if you prefer, check out the data and analysis below.
Enjoy!
Was Switch 2 a success for third-party publishers?
One of the big conversations around Nintendo Switch 2 is whether the machine would deliver for third-parties.
Major companies including EA, Take-Two, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Sega, Capcom, Bandai Namco, Square Enix, CD Projekt and Konami have committed support for the platform, and in our travels, they’ve talked about how Nintendo is actively trying to push third-party games this time around.
The launch of Switch 2 was huge, with 3.5 million consoles sold in just a few days, making it the fastest-selling games machine in history. We know that Mario Kart World was clearly the No.1 game, but what about those third-party releases? Games such as Cyberpunk 2077, Bravely Default, Hitman, Street Fighter, Hogwarts Legacy, Civilization VII, Split Fiction, Sonic, Yakuza and so on…
Let’s find out.
What are the numbers?
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)
What do the numbers mean?
Although third-party publishers appear to have done slightly better during the launch of Switch 2 compared with Switch 1, it’s hard to describe these statistics as positive.
Most third-party Switch 2 games posted very low numbers. One third-party publisher characterised the numbers as ‘below our lowest estimates’, despite strong hardware sales.
The improvement over the Switch 1 launch is also slightly misleading. For starters, there were more consoles sold this time. Plus, the Switch 1 only launched with five physical games: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, 1-2-Switch, Just Dance 2017, Skylanders Imaginators and Super Bomberman R. By comparison, the Switch 2 had a wider selection, with 13 physical games available at launch.
As usual, there are a number of things to consider with these early figures.
Around 80% of all Switch 2 console sales were of the Mario Kart World bundle, and we would expect some of the remaining 20% also picked up Mario Kart World. People buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games, and it would be expected that new users – particularly those who are buying a Nintendo console on day one – would begin with Nintendo software. As a result, it’s possible third-party game sales will occur later, once players have had their fill of Mario Kart.
Meanwhile, Nintendo did not send out Switch 2 units to media ahead of release. That meant there were no reviews for any of these third-party titles at launch. For consumers who may have wanted to pick up a second game alongside Mario Kart, there were no critical reviews available for them to base their purchasing decisions on.
One of the drawbacks for third-party publishers is the fact that Switch 2 is backwards compatible, with some older games (including popular titles like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet) receiving technical improvements on the new hardware. In other words, even if Switch 2 owners are looking at other games to play post-Mario Kart, they have other options available beyond the slate of third-party titles. This was not the case for Nintendo Switch 1.
It’s also worth noting that almost all of the Switch 2 third-party games were ports of older games. Considering the high cross-over between Switch owners and PlayStation/Xbox players, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that a lot of Switch 2 owners already own these titles.
What’s more, many of the titles are using ‘Game Key Cards’, which require users to download the game once they’ve put in the cartridge. This has proven unpopular amongst core audiences, who appreciate the plug and play nature of Nintendo Switch. It’s noteworthy that Cyberpunk 2077, the one third-party game that has done reasonable numbers, runs off the cartridge and doesn’t require a download. Here’s a quote from our interview with CD Projekt Red’s Jan Rosner:
“A plug and play experience is a really cool thing,” he told us last month. “We've already seen from the original Switch that Nintendo players are quite receptive to that.”
He added: “Do not underestimate the physical edition. It's not going anywhere and Nintendo players are very appreciative of physical editions that are done right.”
We’ll be keeping a close eye on third-party game performance on Nintendo Switch 2 in the weeks and months to come.
Summer Game Fest 2025: In Numbers
The figures are in for Summer Game Fest 2025. Let’s take a look:
What are the numbers?
The Summer Game Fest showcase attracted 50 million livestreams collectively. The second biggest showcase of the year behind the Switch 2 reveal. (StreamCharts)
Peak viewership of the Summer Game Fest showcase was three million. 500,000 more than the previous best in 2023 (LevelUp Analytics)
The Xbox Showcase scored 2.2 million peak viewers. 500,000 down on the 2024 event (LevelUp Analytics)
PlayStation State of Play saw 2.1 million peak viewers, slightly ahead of the two million seen in 2024 (LevelUp Analytics)
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 was the most viewed trailer with 85.3 million viewers, slightly ahead of Resident Evil Requiem, which managed 84.6 million (LevelUp Analytics)
Other key videos included The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine demo (67.2 million viewers), the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds (over 50 million), Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls (38.8 million), Sea of Remnants (37.4 million), Personal 4 Revival (26.2 million), 007 First Light (24.7 million), Deadpool VR (24.4 million), and there were 24.2 million views for the Street Fighter 6 Year 3 character reveal (LevelUp data)
On Steam, Resident Evil Requiem was the big winner with 30,000 followers and nearly 620,000 Wishlists. Pragmata was the No.2 most wishlisted game of the period with just shy of 350,000 wishlists. Other key winners included Atomic Heart 2 and Grounded 2 (GameDiscover)
A couple of notable surprises. The body horror game ILL from Team Clout was the No.3 most followed game during the period, and the fourth most wishlisted on Steam. It was also the 12th most viewed trailer (GameDiscover and LevelUp).
Another notable success was The Expanse: Osiris Reborn. Announced during The Future Game Show, it was the sixth most wishlisted game during the period (GameDiscover)
For the start of May to June 12, the number of articles featuring the key term ‘Summer Game Fest’ reached 5,653, a drop of nearly 4,000 over the year before (Press Engine)
For the first three days after the PlayStation State of Play event, 2,186 articles had been produced. This is down on the 3,035 from the year before. For the Xbox Showcase, article count went from 6,675 in 2024 to 2,750 in 2025 (Press Engine)
What do the numbers mean?
It wasn’t quite as blockbuster-heavy this year, but Summer Game Fest was a big success in terms of direct-to-consumer viewership, partly driven by a growing understanding and appreciation of the SGF concept.
With hundreds of games shown across a large number of showcases, not every game was going to be a winner. But with fewer big franchise titles on display, this presented an opportunity for new IP, AA games and even indie titles to cut through. And we’ve clearly seen that with games like Pragmata and ILL.
Not all the showcases grew, with Xbox pulling in 500,000 fewer peak viewers for its show compared with the year before. However, 2.2 million is still a strong performance for SGF, and the 2024 showcase was notable as the first Activision/Xbox/Bethesda event, and had been hyped up accordingly.
There was a drop in media coverage. This will be partly due to a fall in media generally, with Press Engine estimating that there were 400 fewer game outlets (globally) this year.
But there are a few other mitigating points. With media cutting back on staff, websites are instead being more focused on high impact pieces over covering every little story. As former Polygon Editor-In-Chief Chris Plante said on the show this week, media publications are increasingly doing deeper round-ups and live-blogs, as opposed to writing up every single game reveal.
The Nintendo Switch 2 launch also coincided with Summer Game Fest this year, with media outlets only receiving hardware on launch day. This saw publications having to balance SGF with Switch 2 coverage.
Meanwhile...
Take-Two and NBA has formed the NBA Take-Two Media company, which is designed to ‘bring fans together through competitive gaming, social-first content, original programming and live events’. It follows an extension of the agreement with Take-Two around the NBA 2K series of video games.
Warner Bros has restructured its games business into four key areas covering Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Mortal Kombat and the DC Universe. Yves Lachance, the previous head of Warner Bros’ Montreal studio, will lead Harry Potter and Game of Thrones. And NetherRealm boss Shaun Himmerick will lead Mortal Kombat and DC. Elsewhere, Steven Flenory has been made senior VP for central tech and services.
US actors union SAG-AFTRA has suspended its nearly year-long strike, instructing members to return to work. It follows the announcement of a tentative agreement between SAG-AFTRA and video game companies including Activision, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Insomniac and Warner Bros. The union was looking to secure an agreement that protected workers from the exploitative use of AI.
Fallout Shelter is (somehow) ten years old and has had over 230 million downloads, Bethesda has announced.
And Sony and Shift Up’s action game Stellar Blade has sold three million units wordwide. The game released on PS5 last year, and launched on PC on June 11 this year. The game has sold one million units on PC in just three days.
That’s it for this week. Join us back here on Tuesday for another big video game exec interview. Thank you for reading!
Share this post