Every week we hear about how another indie title on the Switch has sold so many copies or outperformed sales on other platforms. This week, publisher FDG Entertainment revealed the Switch eShop sales for Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King are twenty times higher than sales on Valve's Steam service. No exact figures were provided.
In the same tweet, a fan of the Castle Pixel developed game asked if Blossom Tales would receive a Switch physical release on Amazon. FDG replied it currently wasn't planned but said an alternate limited physical release may happen in the near future.
Other indie hits on the Switch eShop include Thimbleweed Park, previously predicted to exceed lifetime Steam sales, and Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon - making half of its sales on Switch. Other games like Hollow Knight and Death Squared have also sold exceptionally well since they were released on Switch.
Once again, this illustrates the popularity of indie games on the platform. Have you played Blossom Tales on the Switch yet? Have you downloaded any of the other games mentioned here? Tell us below.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 69
For once, the headline is a definite understatement.
The headline could be stronger (something with x20).
Can't believe 'em, no sales numbers and a pixelated artstyle for their game is a clear giveaway that they're lying. After all NintenDoomed!
Let this be a lesson (one of many examples, really) to all small/indie studios that some games will sell significantly better on Nintendo systems than anywhere else. If you have a game that’s retro-inspired or pixel art or inspired by a specific Nintendo game/franchise, you’re seriously blowing it if you choose to ignore Nintendo systems and publish that game elsewhere.
I usually like to make dumb jokes in the comment section but this story just makes me feel good. The mix of GOAT games like BotW and little gems like Blossom Tales getting a second, portable life on Switch is what makes the console special. I'm happy to see it do so well and literally save the studio that clearly poured a ton of love into its creation. I look forward to whatever they make next.
I've recently bought Hollow Knight in the recent sale, despite having a large backlog of games. I know I'll get more value out of it than I have paid for it. Maybe I won't finish it, but maybe it'll hit a nerve and make me play 100%. That's happening more and more since getting a Switch. The only game on PC the last decade or so to hit that nerve was GTA V. Most games that are multi platform and exists on PC as well as Switch, you couldn't pay me to play it on the PC. But I'll gladly buy the Switch version. It's just not practical to be tied to a chair at a desk to play games.
Hmm, I'm sure the game is probably better than I'm thinking, but it just looks like a straight rip off of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I say that because this game in this trailer used entirely puzzles or mechanics which are all in 2D Zelda games and didn't seem to have a sense of identity in presentation or artstyle other than a generic pixel look.
As someone that hasn't beat ALTTP and for others that has access to ALTTP, I don't see why you would buy this game. Maybe you want more gameplay like it?
...and I then check the Steam page and the most helpful review reaffirms my worries... pass
Not to down the very impressive achievement that this is, but any game on Steam has an OVERWHELMINGLY LARGER amount of competition to worry about. There are about 26 THOUSAND games on Steam, apparently.
If you follow comments on here, you know I strongly shoot down the idea that the Switch has no games. But compared to Steam, every other platform has no games. Makes it hard on Steam for anything but the biggest names to stand out.
@FlameRunnerFast Well, if you're gonna rip off another game, you may as well rip off one of the most universally loved games of all time. ALTTP has a small section of detractors that are highly out numbered by its die hard fans. Those people are probably totally content with more similar gameplay.
Indie games sell well on Nintendo platforms, because most Nintendo players are poor. Third party triple A's don't do so well
@BigKing
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/08/bethesdas_pete_hines_says_switch_game_releases_have_been_a_huge_success
Does this game have any original ideas? Perhaps they didn’t put those in the trailer?
Very happy to see Nintendo make room for this kind of game instead of forcing Link's Awakening down everyone's throats again. This game sells for almost double the price of the VIrtual Console SNES games as well, so Nintendo still makes four dollars in platform holder's royalties off each Blossom Tales copy sold.
I know it's a very girly game but it sure was a very enjoyable one. One of the better Zelda-inspired game only rival by Ittle Dew 2.
@BigKing You need to walk out and enjoy the sunshine.
@BigKing That’s perhaps the stupidest comment I’ve ever seen in my life. Congratulations.
I should buy this
@BigKing @Mrtoad
And keep in mind: Bethesda only released late ports too.
You know you have a winner when you release a 30FPS Doom with watered down texturing (while it was famous for it's use of MegaTextures on PC for instance) and people still buy it enough to make an impact.
The headline reads like a speech exercise!
@Mrtoad because they're cheap ports and there is no competition on the Switch. They're not doing better than on other platforms.
And finally, publishers always call everything a huge success. Stop repeating marketing bojos
So they sold 20 copies...
@Cosats I just walked outside in sunny Taiwan and bought Okami HD. It sucks
I bought this and do I have to say I don't recommend it (lttp is my favourite Zelda) as the puzzles and dungeons are too easy and the game too short
@BAN you're only dumb if you think PC gamers care about crappy 2D pixel zelda clones.
Nintendo fanboys celebrate them like it's a triple A game. SWITCH >>> STEAM!!!!1
@BigKing Sounds like you've given at least one third-party AAA (re-)release a sale. But what did you find wrong with Okami HD? Surely you knew what the game would be like? Not hard to research that one before buying!
Like the look of Blossom Tales. Yes, ALttP is certainly better, but I won't play only the single best game in each genre - there's room for the merely good too.
great well deserved
@BigKing Yawn. No one cares, man. If you seriously get this worked up over Nintendo fans being reasonably biased in favor of Nintendo on a website made specifically for Nintendo fans, then do yourself a favor and go somewhere else. It’s not healthy to be so bitter and angry about such trivial things.
@Krull I just bought it because it was a physical release and cheap. Never played it before, read some reviews but they are all clones. Copy paste opinions: 9, ,9, 9, 9, 9.
Okami is really slow and flawed. Not really a triple A either. More like an old cult classic
@BAN Bitter and angry? I'm just having fun. I'm a Nintendo fan myself, just not as delusional as most of them (and I like Playstations and Segas too)
Some people really do hate to see publishers doing well on Nintendo hardware
@BigKing yeah you must be right while every publisher who says their switch release has been successful is lying to us all. The onus is now on you to prove they are lying. So please go ahead and do your best.
So it sold 20 more copies than the Steam version? Safe to assume that as there is no sales data, which means the game sold that badly.
Steam is truly a mess....
i only buy the big guns in steam.
So Nintendo has to learn a lesson from that.. Dont put to many of those games at ones. It will get lost pretty fast.
is there Blocking of Profiles on here?
@NewAdvent Bliss Achieved. thanks.
Well I just bought it because it's only 7.99 right now on the NA eshop. Hey if its a direct ripoff of LTTP its means its probably a good but derivative game. Nobody rips off bad games for a reason.
Not that surprising really. Steam is the best curated videogame store in the world, but still, it's MASSIVE and these types of games will eventually fly under the radar of many users. Some will get massive word-of-mouth exposure, sure, and will be massives successes on the platform accordingly, but for many others, just "good" games, that does not hold true.
The e-shop is not at all well curated, but it's (still) rather overseeable, you can actually look through every single game if you want without spending weeks on it. Also, it's not surprise that games that are homages to some of Nintendo's most popular IPs fare particularly well on a Nintendo platform. No surprise at all!
@InAnotherCastle I agree for the most part, I had the same experience with the aforementioned Hollow Knight, but also many others, like recently Dead Cells and Bad North, but also gems like Iron Cast and Battle Chef Brigade. I don't think I would have played them at all or nearly as much or as obsessed if I only had them on PC, as one among literally thousands of items in my Steam library (It's worth mentioning of course, that all of these games I named are also really, really good, with some of them being among the best in the respective genre I've played in years, for instance Hollow Knight is probably the finest 2D Soul-Like I ever played and Dead Cells might be the best Metroidvania-Rogue-Like if Iever played ^^).
Unfortunately there is a downside to this, as I noticed some performance issues at certain points in almost all these games. Dead Cells drops below its 60fps target constantly, but at least, the developer has acknowledged it and is apparently working on it. I hope they can fix it. Even Hollow Knight and Battle Chef Brigade feel like they are definitely dropping frames in stressful battle situations at times. Nothing gamebreaking, but unfortuantely still noticeable occassionally.
A game I have a real issue with is Aegis Defenders. It's a nice little game and I do enjoy playing it in co-op on insane, it's great fun and a really decent challenge despite the cute looks, but boy ... once the going gets busy, the framerate here constantly heads for the single digits fast and worst of all, it then stays there until the action let's up, which can be several minutes in later TD stages. It's not unplayable, but it's actually making the task of building your towers where you want them and hitting your targets that much harder.
I'd say it's an CPU issue as far as Aegis Defenders is concerend and it's probably not something they can really fix, even if they tried, which I am not aware of them doing, but still ... in the current state, I would have to advise anyone interested in the game to get it on another platform, 2D pixel-art or not. The Switch literally cannot handle it after the initial stages, which makes all the convenience the platform offers for naught unfortunately =(
A great game, kept me playing till the end!
Good for them. I've played countless Zelda clones considered great by the community and none of them felt as good as Blossom Tales.
Despite being more than inspired by Zelda, it is beautifully crafted and the music in insanely good for little game like this. The game is a little short though, but this is only a problem because the game is great.
@Einherjar I don't think I saw a single review or piece that mentioned mega textures for Doom 2016. Thats tech people were talking about for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars or Rage and its tech I think many are pretty skeptical of (neither of those titles look especially good thanks to Mega Textures, especially on consoles where memory was limited and HDDs slow). Far more focus went to the fact that Doom 2016 on consoles hit 60fps and was using dynamic resolutions to achieve it I'd say.
Blossom Tales is easily the 2nd best Zelda game on the Switch. Thoroughly enjoyed it!
@BigKing this is an interesting theory and I would love to see some evidence backing it up. I would think a larger factor is people with new switches who perhaps haven’t owned a console in a long time, stocking their libraries with every great indie game that’s been published in the last 10 years to play on the go, which is still a wonderful novelty. I hadn’t owned a console since the Dreamcast came out on my birthday 19 years ago, and it’s my renewed enthusiasm for gaming combined with a golden age for independent (and retro!) titles that has me making snap purchases for under $20 on the eshop.
@Smigit Absolutely true, especially when focusing on console versions. But the idTech 6 update on MegaTextures was pretty well discussed in PC circles at least ^^
My point is: Doom 2016 is a gorgeous game with exceptional texturing work and rock solid performance.
The Switch version was a small miracle, and it shows that people still bought it, most likely due to being a handheld game in a sense.
When you get people to ignore "1080p, 60fps, PC mustard race" nonsense, you have a winner on your hands ^^
Well, let me just say I purchased this game day one on Switch after seeing a preview video. Being inspired by LTTP is obvious which made buying it a no brainer for me.
I put other games on the back burner after playing an hour of Blossum Tales. The way the game handles and plays as well as the graphical style pulled me in. I am a little biased though since I grew up with old-school pixel games.
@Heavyarms55
While reading the article, I thought the same thing. Sales on Steam usually put forward many, many, triple-AAA productions, or wildly successful indies that we've all heard about. Most smaller indies aren't featured a lot on Steam, and so, even when on sale, are harder to find.
On Switch, when there are sales, it is practically ALL indies anyways (except some big productions sprinkled here and there occasionally), so it is a LOT easier to get noticed for a smaller studio. A lot of indie productions on Switch seems like new games to me, and it's only after some research that I notice it was already out on PC for quite a while already, but never heard of it (and I have over 600 games in my Steam account).
If the Switch E-shop was doing sales on most of its big triple AAA software all the time, with smaller indies practically never being seen in the main sale page (even if on sale), then it would be like Steam, with low sales for them.
It's all about them being at the forefront of the "deals" section on the e-shop, mainly because there's not enough AAA productions on the Switch on sale at any given time to eclipse indies.
Here we go again. X20 of what? This has a 56 max player count on Steam 😂
Just do what Team Cherry did and give an actual number.
@BigKing 😂
@kobashi100 If they're doing so well, why aren't they releasing more games like they do on the other platforms?
Why?
Tell me.
Use your brains and think for one time.
It doesn't make any sense.
Bathesda got 31 games on the PS4 and 4 on the Switch, one of which is a mobile game.
Huge success
@BigKing so you have no proof that the sales are not doing well and it's all lies.
Okay least we have cleared that up.
@BigKing Man, how bad do you hate yourself?
@BigKing The Switch has been out for 1 and a half years while the PS4 has been out for a little less than five. Do you see the problem with your reasoning?
@kobashi100 proof does not work that way. You have to prove that it is a huge success, not the other way around. Quoting a PR dude does not prove anything.
You sound like a religious person. ** you can't prove god doesn't exist so he exists **
@BAN a rhetoric question, so edgy. I gave you a like because you're fishing for those.
@Mrtoad Repeat after me: the Nintendo Switch will never get 31 Bethesda games. Ever.
It got a few ports of old games that were easy to port and one new one that happened to use the id tech engine.
They're so successful that there were no Switch versions announced for Fallout 76, RAGE 2, Starfield, The Elder Scrolls VI and Wolfenstein: Youngblood
@JHDK ; )
@BigKing
-Starlink and Elder Scrolls VI aren't coming to the PS4 or Xbox One either
-Wolfenstein Young Blood is not confirmed for any console as of now
-RAGE 2 and Fallout 76: OK
The Switch port of Doom was obviously successful enough to make a Doom Eternal port. I'd think they wouldn't want another bomb in their hands, but what do I know?
@kobashi100 You must be new to marketing.
I always believe what a PR dude is saying, even though it makes no sense! But I'm a fanboy so I'm a believer
@Mrtoad
Doom was successful enough because it was a cheap port. The engine is so flexible that it is barely any more work to get it to run on the Switch. It scales wonderfully to different hardware. That is why you see those id tech games on the Switch and don't see many other new games.
How difficult is that to comprehend?
As soon as it takes much more effort, a possible Switch port gets dropped. It's all about the return of investment. What we've seen are low investment ports.
@BigKing So, you're saying it was a success (You said triple A games don't sell well in your original post, well it sold well enough to make money is my point)? And if it was so easy to port, why did Bethesda need to hire a separate porting team instead of just keeping it in-house, like they did with Skyrim?
@Mrtoad because the engine is so flexible any team could do it, unlike probably Skyrim. Panic Button is a small company, 34 employees on LinkedIn. You don't want to waste resources(internal developers) if you can outsource it. Do you even understand how development works? It's really obvious if you code yourself
I said a cheap port might generate some revenue, but it isn't a huuuge success, nor are third party games in general on the Switch. I think none of them sold more than a million.
@BigKing ''I said a cheap port might generate some revenue, but it isn't a huuuge success, nor are third party games in general on the Switch. I think none of them sold more than a million.'
I believe three third party games sold a million as of April (One of those games obviously being Mario+Rabbids), but again I could be misremembering as I couldn't find anything on it.
Anyway I do see where you're coming from and I do at least partially agree with the Switch never getting all of Bethesda's games especially when it comes to the open world games.
@BigKing so the the studio Announce that switch sales saved the studio but you want us to believe that it's all lies and we should take you're word as gospel. Come on dude. You are sounding like a hater!
If a game doesn't do well, studios are happy to say that software hasn't broke even or has struggled. This idea that indie studios are claiming to be successful when instead they are struggling as a PR stunt is laughable.
Steamspy had the sales at 3k. So if we multiply that by 20 that gives us minimum of 60k. Probably is more.
If the studio feel 60k has made profit and can call it a success who are you to say it's all a front and one big lie. You are gonna have to drop some raw data and hard numbers before you can claim that game didn't do well and lost money.
@NewAdvent Thanks for the tip on the Ignore button. I had no idea that existed. Not too many trolls on here but there are a few I wouldn't mind auto-scrolling past. Cheers
@Mrtoad that's a Mario game, that doesn't count. Ubisoft could release Mario's Big Toe Nail Clipping Simulator and it would sell a million.
@kobashi100 60k is not a huge success if it sells a million on the PS4. Studios don't usually talk about whether or not something is disappointing, because it damages the relationship. Even EA employees said that the Wii U sales were terrible(the Wii u received Mass Effect, Need for Speed, Harry Potter and FIFA in the first year), but the official company stance was that everything was fine. They did not release anything after that on the Wii U and on the Switch it's FIFA only. Ubisoft is only releasing Rabbids and Just Dance games.
Mature games just rarely sell well on Nintendo platforms, that's why you don't see many. No need to be in denial. Sure you can dial the expectations down, expect the Switch version to sell 5% of what the PS4 sold and call it a huge success. But then you're living in an alternate reality.
@BigKing That’s why I mentioned it in the first place.
@BigKing are you really suggesting that blossom tales sold 1 million on PS4 lol
Also I really think you are forgetting the Wii U generation. EA came out and said they were disappointed with Wii U performance just like Ubisoft did. 2K games did the same after NBA 2K was released.
The idea that studios are actually disappointed in sales but are officially saying they are happy is farcical. That's what you think is happening.
I guess you were one of the many that said 2k were lying when they said they were happy with NBA 2K18 sales on switch. Months later 2019 is announced.
EA said they were happy with FIFA 18 performance. Again I guess that was a lie but oh know FIFA 19 announced.
Bethesda lying about being happy with doom sales. Yep that must have been a lie. Months later doom eternal announced.
Who would have thought we would live in a time where publishers were so charitable towards Nintendo hardware. Not only are they willing to lie about being happy with sales. They are now following up with newer titles even though previous ones all flopped.
What's worse is we are talking about a small indie studio here. A small indie studio lying about its success to keep Nintendo happy. Nintendo can't believe how lucky they are. Everybody is lying to keep them happy
@kobashi100 Sorry, I was talking about the third party support and the Bethesda comments.
No PS4 user buys Blossom Tales. I see it's on sale now for the Switch for €9.99 (usually it's €14.99)
Now look at the current PS4 games on sale:
Doom €9.99
Yakuza Kiwami €9.99
Need For Speed €7.99
UFC 2 €9.99
Tomb Raider Definitive Edition €6.99
Overcooked €4.99
Dark Souls II €9.99
DiRT Rally €8.99
Battlefield 4 €6.99
Mass Effect Andromeda €7.99
Titalfall 2 €9.99
Star Wars Battlefront Ultimate Edition €9.99
Resident Evil 0/1/4/5/6/Revelations: €8.99/€9.99
Dragon Ball Xenoverse €9.99
Wolfenstein The New Order €5.99
Wolfenstein The Old Blood €5.99
Jak & Daxter €6.99
The Evil Within €5.99
Mirrors Edge Catalyst €7.99
The Evil Within €5.99
Marvel vs Capciom 3 €7.99
Ultra Street Fighter IV €7.99
You will never see anything like that on a Nintendo console and that's why an indie game sells better on the Switch: PS4 owners can buy triple A titles for the same price.
If the Switch had similar sales, nobody would buy Blossom Tales on the Switch either. But on the Switch you have to pay €59.99 for Doom and there is no other third party support. The Switch gamers are so hungry and thirsty that they buy Blossom Tales.
You fanboys keep clinging onto Doom. The only reason the Switch gets a new version is because the engine supports it. Where are the other ports? Tell me. Most studios already said the Switch just isn't powerful enough for most modern games.
@NewAdvent Naw I'm a longtime visitor I guess I just have a thick skin. Overall I enjoy the site and the lively discussions. It's all good!
Tap here to load 69 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...