Switch Accounts For Almost Half Of ToeJam & Earl: Back In The Groove's Early Sales

Not surprised at all. You can make the argument that most Sega die hards moved to GameCube when Sega waved the white Dreamcast flag and have been in Nintendo’s camp since. Hence the excitement surrounding the Sega Ages lineup and the boos for not seeing Shenmue & Yakuza come to Switch!

The headline is kind of confusing, though.

You mean "Switch Ports Make Up Almost Half Of ToeJam & Earl: Back In The Groove's Early Sales".

@joey302

I'm sure that has a little to do with it, but I'd argue the Switch being as popular as it is, especially for indie games, is the biggest factor at play.

The lack of sales for this game on the Xbox One kinda tells you where their player base is at in terms of the games they like to play. It's the same reason they struggle to get anything other than major triple A Japanese developed games. But as for Switch achieving almost half of all sales, well it's not too surprising really.

I need to get this and add to that Switch total

@Spudtendo ok that’s a fair point too but trust me, there are many many Sega fans here in Nintendo’s world. More than Sony and Microsoft I’ll wager. 😉

Two reasons why:

1. The Nintendo Switch is the ultimate console. People want to play most games on it, not on other consoles.

2. Unfortunately, it lacks third party AAA titles. So people will have to do with countless indies which other console owners don't have to touch.

That being said, hopefully this is a great game worthy of being the successor of the 16-bit era original.

I had to read the headline 3 times before I understood what I was reading. "Accounts for" is kind of confusing in this situation since it can have two meanings and you don't know which one it is before you reach the end of the sentence. The game's long name doesn't help things either. Though maybe it's just because I'm not a native speaker.

@FragRed it's a shame really as an Xbox owner there is some truly great games on its store both old and new but it seems the wrong people buy the console in the first place. I often see Panzer Dragoon appear when Sega ask about old franchises yet on Xbox Panzer Dragoon Orta is sitting there with the original as an unlockable bonus, the first 2 Turok games have been available for a long time, all versions of Doom are playable, Rare Replay, most of the old Star Wars games, Sonic CD, the original Contra arcade game etc, frankly the Xbox One is arguably the best retro console you can buy but those kind of players don't necessarily do so.

Having said all of that I actually got this for Switch as I currently have far too much to play on my Xbox. Great game which needs a bit of tweaking to the tomatoes in particular as they seem pretty useless but overall the game is good fun

@construx #2 is correct.

@carlos82 : Retro was well represented on the Xbox 360, too.
People mostly buy an Xbox One S for the Forza series or for the 4K BD player.
People definitely don't buy a 4K ready Xbox One X console for the retro, either.

I don't think that's surprising at all.

I would love to know the actual age demographics for all 3 consoles. I mean you would guess the XB1 and PS4 is predominantly 12-25, and the Switch is mainly everything on either side of that. I presume Toe jam and Earl wouldn't be purchased by anyone who didn't remember it the first time around.

@FragRed I think it has more to do with the fact that there's just a lot less XBox Ones in homes than PS4s. XBox actually has a lot more Sega-focused community than PS, since the Sega/Dreamcast camp kind of fanned out, half going to Nintendo for "traditional" Sega, and the other half going to XBox (OG) for the continuity and continued brands like Shenmue (XBox OG was partly a Sega console after all....) X1 has a lot more of the legacy Sega stuff than either PS or Nintendo as a result, so the Sega audience is there. There's just less audience on the platform, total, vs. PS. If both platforms were an even 80+Mil units, I think PS would be the one lagging in TJ&E sales.

Of course Switch would always overperform on this since it's still the core of that 90's gaming audience.

Of note, though TJ&E was never a Japanese game. It's an American game. Sega corp in Japan never actually liked it and very nearly never actually released it.

Everyone knows Switch userbase buys such games out of desperation while bereft of Battelfield 5.

@NEStalgia yea well makes sense being Sega Japan was the ruination of Sega in the console market with their nose in the air ignorant/no one is better than us you stink Sega of America attitude. Oh well...☺️

It says 'physical'. Am I missing something, I couldn't find it retail anywhere in the US. Was it released as a retail too, because I'd definitely pick it up that way too! Anyways, bought it on PS4...may dip again and buy it on Switch, but highly doubt it. Other than that, was somehow waiting for some Home Alone Reference since Macualy Culkin helped with the production of it.

@construx @carlos82 I agree with X1 being, really, the best current console for retro gaming. PS resells a select library of older games, but the lack of BC on PS4 really hampers it (and I bet for business strategic reasons PS5 doesn't fix that.) And Switch is going out of it's way to keep everything retro away from us aside from the NES drip feed.

I don't know, though, that it's so much the "wrong" people buying XBoxes, so much as the demand for retro gaming on a modern console is a profitable niche, but not a large one (Nintendo aside.) I think there's a solid community of retro fans on XB starting back with 360 Arcade, and those "in the know" know you can find a lot of gems there. It's just that the retro audience is small enough to begin with, and the bulk of it is sated by pirated ROMS on PC, the Mini consoles, re-issues of major titles like FF, and for the purists, actual retro hardware. So the remainder of the market won't make a particularly big presence on any current console.

I'm not so sure XBoxes are being bought predominantly by people just looking for AAA 4k experiences any more disproportionately than PS4 is. For both that's the bulk of the audience by far. The XBox market is just smaller....Even for the X, yeah you buy it for the power, but I'd think that most of the market for the $500 (now $400) power console is going to be the hardcore gamers that are probably also the retro market moreso than the S buyers.

I'm not above playing Symphony of the Night on my X. Better than paying double for the "HD remaster" (that doesn't look different) on the PS4....

@joey302 LOL, yeah...they really really had a superiority complex. Which never made sense. Sega hardware actually never sold very well in Japan. Even their whole in-flight gaming system thing was a complete disaster. Most of their sales were in the US and Europe, but they somehow saw themselves as "the other Nintendo", while Nintendo was wiping the floor with them at home.

@NEStalgia @construx its retro capabilities was one of the main reasons I bought the X, being able to play older games in 4K with improved performance way is fantastic and a big selling point for me. Obviously I got it for newer releases too but without backwards compatibility I'd likely have just stuck with the PS4 Pro

@NEStalgia pains me to know that Sega of America had the master plan and sparked the success of the Genesis which SOJ benefited from. If your SOJ and you see your American branch pull that off, you may want to give the big wigs like Tom Kalinske (Who SOJ busted his chops to no end) more control. Idk man I have the console wars book in my head today lol! It’s just a shame what happened to Sega who had at the time, some of the most talented game designers in the world!! Smh

"25,000 units sold on Switch, 12,000 on steam and PS4 each, and around 5,500 on Xbox, for a total of around 53,500 units sold between presales and launch"[/b]

More like, it is "being ignored less on Switch"

If you home - not what you are excited about playing 🙄
https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/sekiro-shadows-die-twice

@Agramonte This. When Resident Evil 2, Kingdom Hearts 3, Division 2, Devil May Cry 5, Sekiro, Far Cry 5 etc are all vying for gamers time on other consoles in Q1 2019, it is hard to fit in a game like this. With the only traditionally "big" game on Switch being the Lego Movie 2 so far in 2019..well Toejam & Earl were always going to get a better share of that time on Switch.

Edit: Forgot about Apex Legends, Metro, ANTHEM (all big games in terms of consumer awareness)

@nhSnork

😂😂😂

I ordered the physical edition. As a Nintendo only gamer in my youth, I never played Sega games much outside the arcades as the only system of there’s in my household was my sister’s Game Gear. Now as an adult I’m glad Sega is featured predominantly on Nintendo’s systems as it gives me a chance to try them out again. I think they are better tailored to its systems and it’s more old school fan base. Can’t wait to try this game out! Count me as excited...we all have different tastes!

@Shellcore Yep, it has been a packed 3 months. Even financially, I am not investing any game money on Indies right now (Spotify/CrunchyRoll on my commute)

But even on Switch where it has no big titles to compete with, at 25K it is not setting the world on fire.

This is just that on other platforms, people care even less.

Nice to see it doing well, but as much as I'm a Sega fan at heart, I really don't get on that well with Toejam and Earl. From all accounts it seems like they missed a bit of an opportunity with the sequel. The PS4 and XBO are far older than the Switch too with much more varied software libraries, so it only makes sense that indies are doing so well on Switch. It's great to see, but there is a little too much fanboying with this kind of news at times.

@carlos82 One other good point about XBox is XBox is the only platform that has the real TJ&E and TJ&E 2 Genesis games. That might account for lower interest too. I picked them up on a sale for like $5 or less back in August.

@joey302 I think a lot of it stemmed from the "who is our company" dilemma. I don't think both divisions agreed on what their business actually was. Like what happened with Penn Central railroad. If you asked the execs of the NY Central half, they'd tell you they're in the railroading business. If you asked the PRR half, they'd tell you they were in the transportation business. They didn't have the same concept of what their core business even was. (And the result is infamous - the collapse of the first "too big to fail.")

SOA existed entirely around competing with Nintendo in the home console space. SOJ saw themselves as an amusement company that dominated the public space in coin op. They never had a handle on home hardware, and seemed to believe it was "beneath" their vaunted station as a "real" arcade company. Pushing the arcade into the home was their whole strategy without noticing the success SOA was producing with a different strategy, and often acting against it because it wasn't the "right" strategy. Then again, Japanese business. The hierarchy is always right, period. Which is fine if the hierarchy actually is right.

@carlos82 : I love my X1X.
I just don't consider BC (and especially 4K BC) games 'retro' on it.
(I mean, the X360 Forza Horizon in 4K looks better than some current simulators and definitely better than any car game on Switch.. )

@NEStalgia well put if both divisions can’t agree on the goals to be met or agree on how to approach and achieve those goals, chances are failure is not to far off. As a big Sega fan, You gotta wonder how things would be today If Sega was still in the hardware game. I really thought Nintendo was in big trouble with Wii U but man they really touched the nerve of the market with Switch and turned things around which is great because you don’t wanna market with just Sony and Microsoft. Even Sony sometimes reminds me of SOJ with a certain level of Smugness.

Not surprising the Switch version sold the most. Now that I've beaten Hyper Light Drifter, I can't wait to start this!

The overwhelming vast majority of gamers own multiple systems. The last major survey on this indicates that over 50% of gamers in the US own two modern systems. That’s well over 50 million in the US alone. The argument that this game, or any other, is doing well on the Switch due to a lack of games is total BS. People bought this because they WANTED TO and not because there’s a dirth of games. I see this argument presented over and over again by the exact same people, because they happen to not like a game, and it’s total nonsense. I don’t like it therefore it must be selling for other reasons beyond buyers wanted the game? 🙄🙄

The lack of logic used here is astounding. Accept the fact that folks have different tastes than you...and that’s alright, it’s not a threat to you or your preferred system.

Ohh My Gods! Toejam and Earl!

@joey302 All three take their turn at smugness. Nintendo surely did that in the 80s', and again in the Wii era. Microsoft did it in the 360 era into X1. Sony did it PS2 era and again now in PS4 era. Whoever is in the lead takes their ball and goes home. Sega just took their ball and went home without having ever lead. It's like like an American football player doing a touchdown dance after fumbling the ball at the 10 yard line.

Technically I think "if Sega were still in hardware" isn't a realistic question. They demonstrated consecutively they weren't really in hardware at all...they got kind of lucky with Genesis/Master System with the combination of the right (foreign) market at the right time, with a very driven SoA driving it. But almost everything else they did was kind of a wrong product at the wrong time, and they never managed to salvage it again. Dreamcast was a genuine salvage, job, but it was sadly doomed before it started, and even that had help from MS.... Honestly I think even if DC succeeded, Sega was till going to get out of hardware...they never had their heart in it at SoJ, and most of the people that were into it at SoA went to XBox. Sega corp were too fixed on the arcades, even though the arcades were dying, though they still have a good business there. Which is why Sammy now really pulls a lot of the weight in the company more than Sega.

And that's excluding the (LRG) physical sales i reckon.

@NEStalgia yup this is true all 3 have had moments of smugness. You’re a seasoned gamer who watches the industry no doubt! Lol yea even if Dreamcast was successful they still would’ve ran out of cash but even with Dreamcast SOJ made some huge mistakes like not having a DVD drive and also not having copyright protection on the game discs which resulted in a big Dreamcast pirating problem and if you can’t make any money on the software like you’re supposed you might as well pack it all in and cut your losses. I still miss them though lol!

@JLPick limited run games did a physical release

@carlos82
Agreed. My husband is a die hard Sega fan and plays most of his Sega games on Xbox for that very reason. I like rare, so rare replay is a favorite of mine. It's a shame the Xbox one gets overlooked so often. Especially when most of the time X1X is the best way to play.

@joey302

Not really. The first Xbox is practically the Dreamcast 2 (at one point there was talk about it being backwards compatible) as it had all the better SEGA titles like Panzer Dragoon Orta, Crazy Taxi 3, Jet Set Radio Future, Outrun 2, Outrun 2006...sure Monkey Ball showed up first on GC but it later came to Xbox and then they also put most of its sequels on it like Toe Jam & Earl 3, Shenmue 2, Headhunter Redemption, House of the Dead 3, all of its sports and racing titles.SEGA had must have good response on xbox than GC as they carried on putting games on it until the very end. With Nintendo....the mediocre Billy Hatcher I think is the only true exclusive on it.

Nowadays of course SEGA on Nintendo is where the fans want their games to go but SEGA seem to stick with the more powerful platforms and then maybe some on Switch.

@electrolite77

People just don’t think. And can’t accept the fact that everyone has their own tastes and especially now as multiple different generations all enjoy games. Given how well the Switch is selling, costing more than either an Xbox or PS4 at this point, I’m not sure what more they need to know or comprehend. Or why they bother commenting on games/articles they have no interest in to let us know why a game they don’t like sold.

@hadrian your right Xbox was a haven to many Sega games but as much as the Cube maybe? Idk about that but we can probably call it even being what happened was when Sega threw in the towel an even amount of studios like smilebit, Sonic team, am2 etc went with their preferred platform. Some chose Xbox and some chose GameCube. I mean Sonic 1&2 was Cube, Hatcher like you mentioned, Crazy Taxi, phantasy star online, and many others were also Cube exclusive to Xbox (ps2 got a taste of both consoles selections). Idk I just remember everyone in my area anyway flocking to the GameCube over Xbox and all big Sega fans(who were previously Atari fans but that’s another story in of itself!) 😌 Always love me some Outrun 2006/Coast to Coast!! At least Switch has the arcade perfect original Outrun now! And your right Sega seems to favor the Switch these days for classic Sega games. I have no problem with that but Based on the Wii shop closing, we can only “rent” these games till the year 2032 when they close this eshop lol. 🙄

@electrolite77 well now Atari was a bit of a different story and while they were smug in many ways they also were built from the ground up with constant advancements in technology. But intellivision and more so colecovision caught them off guard, AND after Bushnell was out, Warner Bros was running them and didn’t have the first damn clue how to run a technology company. They thought the 2600 had an endless life span and so they fired many engineers and hired many marketing staff instead. Then they made a horrible deal with Steven Spielberg and only gave Warsaw 5 weeks to program ET and usually a normal game cartridge with one man took an average of 6-9 months. 5 weeks?? Warner Bros also basically told Whitehead, Crane, Miller and Kaplan to go to hell by telling them they were no more important than the guy on the assembly line putting the carts together. Result?? the 4 of them in turn formed Activision and created killer 2600 games!! They also lost great designers like Dennis Koble to Imagic who created Demon Attack and Atlantis! And while i loved the 5200 successor to the 2600 the controllers were while ahead of their time, not perfected and horrible. Nolan Bushnell was right in saying “I should’ve never had sold Atari to Warner Bros I should’ve just taken a vacation instead!” Lol 😊
Edit- Dennis Koble and Rob Fulop actually with others from Mattel Intellivision formed Imagic. Fulop created Demon Attack and later on an FYI created the concept for Night Trap Lol.
Edit 2: sorry it was Bob Whitehead as one of the founding four Activision designers- Steve Cartwright came later on!

@electrolite77 I forgot to mention that yes I agree with you in that usually companies that lead their industry are somewhat smug yes. That’s usually when they get surprised by the competition and boom all a sudden no longer the industry leader!

I'm waiting for the Physical Best Buy edition

I have it on the Switch, and indeed it is one of my fav games on it. I have SO much fun with it.

@LavaTwilight If you love the original, you will love this. Not a step back at all. There is lots of content and unlockables. It is extremely fun and plays wonderfully. If you like their irreverent humour, you will have a blast. Everything amazing about the first game, but with little elements of the 2nd and 3rd such as characters, and rapping beat games. There are all the old items and new ones too. There is also level up skills so you spin a wheel after levelling up to get increase stats like speed, health, luck, inventory. Also, only 15 pounds. I am having such fun with it.

@carlos82 Yes, haha. The tomatoes are a very weak weapon! Everything chases you before you can get near enough and line yourself up in the right direction. Big Sneeze, Slingshot, Funk-Fu, and Tomatoe rain are much better choices. Mostly I try and hire the Opera singer to be my bodyguard though

That's awesome! I own the Steam version of the game, but I've ordered the Limited Run edition of the game, so I have to wait until May/June until I get my Switch version.

For the time being though, I'm playing it on my PC, and I'm enjoying it!

@imananjidesuka lol now we need all the games you mentioned on Switch!! Ha ha!

@electrolite77 of course we can cut Warner some slack cause really...who the hell Was dealing with a technology company anyway? Not many! Absolutely 100% uncharted territory. Even Steve Jobs designer of Super Breakout left because he didn’t like the direction Atari was heading! Hindsight of course is 20/20. I was very happy to see the Atari classics recently hitting the Switch! Many of Atari’s classics like Centipede, Asteroids amd Tempest and other still hold up well today!
Yup even Nintendo when they dominated the late 80s tried unprecedented business practices like telling Walmart and Target they couldn’t accept any returns of Nintendo merchandise, mostly consoles! Imagine that?? Also, Forcing 3rd parties via contract to start other companies so they can circumvent the Limited amount of carts per year they can release!
Now Sega, Sega was just Plain scared of Atari’s upcoming Jaguar. They still felt Atari was a threat which resulted in the 32x. Bad move with Saturn so close. Burned many gamers including me! Yea Pico was a waste but the Nomad was a cool Genesis portable the problem was like the Game Gear, the battery life. 32x then killing it AND Genesis right after Saturn hit was a big mistake. This as you know was the beginning of the end for Sega!

@Optimumjay AAhhh...thanks for the heads up on this. Thought I missed something! Still wish they would re-release part 3 though. I was never an x-box fan, it was the reason I got a dreamcast (then found out it was cancelled for it), and have been wanting to replay the game on a different console.