11% Of Witcher 3 Sales Last Year Were For The Nintendo Switch

Not too shabby for a late, full-priced port of a reasonably old game.

I dunno, I expected it to be higher given that the game’s quite a few years old and this was a landmark release. I guess there were loads of people buying it for other consoles because of the Netflix show though.

That's impressive.

More then I would've expected. Perhaps safe to say over a million now.

@electrolite77 @Ralizah
I'd hardly call it "old." It's from 2015 and is a game from the current gen. You also have to consider that there's loads of us who only own Nintendo consoles, and thus, have never played Witcher before. So to us, it's not an old game at all. It's a brand new one to us since it's the first time a Nintendo fan can get their hands on it. There's also the people who have busy lives and want to play it on the go even if they own it on PS4/PC. And people who just love the game enough to buy it multiple times. This game doing well is completely reasonable because the Switch is a great system and other third party companies have no real excuse not to bring their games over. (Looking at you, Atlus, EA, and Konami).

@nessisonett
This number is ONLY for 2019. Meaning that in total from the Switch release on October 15th 2019 to December 2019. 700K copies in under three months. Keep in mind. It is currently April 2020 so the game is probably close to 1 million total on Switch alone by now. People who say 3rd party games don't do well on Switch have no idea what they're saying.

And considering the game actually came out in August last year, that's quite amazing. I can see it getting 1m± sales by the end of this year, especially if the show remains popular.

I'm currently playing it now and it really is a great game (second play through on the Switch)

That's about a 3.5% market penetration on the Switch. I'm not sure if that's a good market penetration or profitable ROI if someone else wants to crunch the numbers feel free.

@electrolite77 - Honestly, I have seen more people excited for old ports than I have seen for many new games. Doom Eternal and FF7 seem to been anything I know of currently this year worth a damn. Last year was pretty comparable too.

I have seen more people talk about the Catherine Full Body port than I have for RE3. I didn't even know it came out til I saw a YT ad yesterday.

That's really impressive considering its cheaper on other platforms and this is only tracking few months of data.

Just goes to show that these ports DO sell on Switch,that's why they're still coming. Much to the chagrin of the naysayers who always claim how no one wants ports.

@JR150 Hell yeah dude

I got it this year. I was unsure if I wanted it on the Switch but once I heard about the recent update I was sold.

Im VERY happy that I got it on the Switch. It allows me to have more time to play.

I expect this to be something of an evergreen title, especially when the price eventually goes down during various future sales. However, I'd like to add that I'd never played the game before yet, on a whim, paid full price for it on Switch. And I'm not gonna lie, it's definitely in my top 3 games now on Switch - if not my favorite. I've sunk about 250 hours into it - a feat topped only by Skyrim, with Xenoblade being a close third.

The game is awesome and the fact that CD Projekt Red could get such a wondrously immense game running (rather competently) on the humble Switch hardware is nothing short of magic.

In any case, those are extremely impressive sales. The title was released a fair amount of time ago and now sells for less (and looks better to boot) on other consoles and yet - in just 3 months - the Switch accounted for over a tenth of its sales last year. Portability gives older games new life and playability, and while some have complained about the number of older ports, I've been really happy with that particular quirk in the Switch's content - perhaps if only because (aside from a PS1), I've never actually owned a non-Nintendo system. It's really nice to catch up on the stuff I might have missed!

Probably would have been a tad higher if a bunch of people hadn't thrown tantrums that the Switch port doesn't look as good as it does on a 3000 dollar gaming desktop.

For a 3rd party game on a Nintendo platform that’s hella impressive. Shows how far Nintendo has come and how they struck gold with the Switch.

@brandonbwii I 100% agree. The Switch is a fantastic system and unlike a lot of more recent previous consoles, it really does cover a huge scope of genres and has games for any type of gamer. You have huge AAA games like Witcher, but also a huge swath of indie games - and all of them seem to be flourishing! It's definitely a great time to be a Nintendo fan!

Wow, those are impressive numbers indeed.
Also, no one mentioned it yet, but I wasn't expecting the game to have sold 25+ million copies overall. That's insane!

@Wilforce Keep in mind, that's 3 months of full price sales on Switch compared to a full year's worth of purchases at a steep discount, boosted by the Netflix show. 3.5% market penetration is a bit misleading. Plus, quite frankly, it'll almost certainly hit a million sales which should more than pay for the porting process several times over, while reaching out to a new audience for their future titles.

@Razer It came out in October as far as I remember.

I have one of those 700k copies. Oh and this reminds me, I have to finish the final DLC. Great game!

That’s not bad considering the age of the game, the price and the graphical downgrade.

Remember it will have been much cheaper on the other formats too, its discounted a lot. I bought it on pc like 2 years ago for under £10 but also bought switch when the crossplay patch released

@Folderoll Exactly, it often has deep discounts on PC and console.

I already got the GOTY version on PC for like 13 quid, but I still bought the Switch version for £35. It really gives the game a new lease of life, and the cross-save system is straightforward.

With the eShop sale going on now I saw it briefly in top 10 in the charts and It must be well over a million. Well deserved! In my top 3 Switch games with BotW and Odyssey.

To many reviews say the graphics are only average. So I've given it a miss.

More than Xbox 😱 I bet there was a big jump after the update as well. I bought it then and I’m sure a lot of others bought it too.

@sandman89 I never noticed that, well spotted.

That's a funny way of saying that 89% of Witcher 3 sales last year were NOT on the Switch.

@Wilforce Even if every single one of these units were sold digitally during a sale (which at most has been half price, and obviously physical and normal digital has been nearly twice that at all times) the game made a gross of about $21m. Even if others (Nintendo and Retailers) took 45% of every sale of that (they won't have because digital sales do not have to pay the retailerss normal 25%) that's still $11.5m.

I have no idea how much it cost to port but ports and remasters are "cheap" in comparison to building a new game. My gut feeling is that it costs around $1.5m for a high end port (though this is the games industry we are talking about and extremely tight deadlines and crunch are the norm, so I'd expect most ports are done much cheaper).

So at my very most conservative estimate, the port still made $10m profit (and likely much higher) and the game is out and paid for now, so every sale is just a bonus.

This just validates my argument that ports and remasters on Switch (like the coming Borderlands and Bioshock games) don't need to be $60 for every game. They will recover the costs and even make a profit. Charging full price has never been needed, just like charging $100, as has become the standard on other consoles, is not needed. Some gamers and Publishers might argue it's to "make back the money and put food on dev's tables" but it's not, this is about maximising profits, which goes straight in to bonuses for scumbags like Randy Pitchford, while the actual devs get stiffed.

A beautiful game with a beautiful port. Life is beautiful but stay safe.

In all fairness that’s 11% in 20% of the time, as we’re talking about whole year worth of sales and Switcher was released in mid October. It will be interesting to see first quarter of 2020 sales.

@zool The Witcher 3 is one of the prettiest games on the Switch - it’s just not quite as smooth and detailed as it is on more powerful platforms. Obviously. It’s a bogus comparison - it should be rated against the Switch’s software library, not another system’s. This might not be the best version of The Witcher 3, but it is still one of the very best games on Switch (it’s in my top three) - and it’s the only version you can play handheld.

I got it this year, after the latest patch, so sales must be on at least 700,001...

Adjusted for price paid that would probably put the Switch version around 33%.

I bought it day one physical. Partly because of how great the game was when I had played a few hours on Xbox years previous and partly to support 3rd party devs for bringing games to Nintendo.
Only issue I have with the game is all the different systems at play in it. I quite often find myself in situations where I can't progress in a mission because I'm missing a particular bomb I never got crafted or something similar.

Hope it does more then that. It deserves it

It also had a massive boost on Steam towards the end of last year, due to the Netflix show.

People who are negative toward the Switch version because of a slight downgrade in graphics are living in cloud cuckoo land, the game is phenomenal and to be able to play it anywhere is the icing on the cake.

@gcunit That's very specific.

I have no plans to buy a PS4 or Xbox, so I was thrilled this came to Switch. Maybe the graphics aren’t as good. But I have no idea what I’m missing. I’m loving this game nearly as much as BoTW (maybe more in some ways?...) and that is my highest praise. It’s really great on Switch!

I played it on PC back in a 2016 sale for £25. I was pretty underwhelmed, got to the City and lost interest, it had a ridiculous amount of pop in back then that hurt immersion immensely. I went back to playing Xenoblade X and eagerly awaiting Nintendo's next console. I have considered getting it again, it is always on sale on Xbox for around £10, so it's there if I get the urge to play it.

@Krull thanks for your feedback. Have you played Assassin's Creed rogue collection for Switch. If you have, how does Black Flag compare to Witcher. I am playing Black Flag now and I am impressed with the Graphics.

@zool Ah, I’m afraid I don’t know - I’ve skipped the Assassins Creed remasters. They would be good comparisons, as two western series. I suspect AC is smoother, but those games are older, so The Witcher is perhaps more detailed. I think you would be impressed in comparison with Black Flag.

The Witcher 3 is certainly one of the prettiest games in my Switch software library. Has none of the slow texture pop-in of Xenoblade 2, despite having a much richer and more detailed design. Only game that rivals it is Breath of the Wild, but they have very different art styles. I’ve noticed frame skips in background animations but nothing affecting the gameplay.

@Paraka I was beyond excited for Final Fantasy VIII Remaster last year. I’m pumped for Borderlands 2 coming to the Switch, along with BioShock; all three of them. I’ll throw my cash within a second if the Batman Arkham games come to the Switch.

Aside from Final Fantasy VII Remake, my Xbox One and PS4 will continue their dusty roles. Some of these new games are just not as interesting.

I wonder how people will look back on the PS4/Xbox One generation of games. Compared to the previous PS3/Xbox 360 generation, where we see so many of those games coming to current gen.

I’m not including Nintendo since they’re a league of their own, no matter what system they release, there’s going to be titles that will stand out.

Even though these are good numbers I’m honestly surprised it didn’t sell 1m in 2019. Everyone was talking about this release, it had tons of hype and marketing, it is known as one of the all time great games and at release it was $50 for the physical copy at places like Walmart.

I know lots of people already owned it on console where it looks and runs better, I myself already owned it on ps4. But having the game portably is a huge plus and what drove me to personally buy it again on switch. And now I have put in about 65hrs on switch which is way more time then I put on ps4 just due to the flexibility of the console.

I expect when all is said and done for the game to end up with 1.5-2mil copies sold just based on the 2019 numbers. Which is kinda a shame because this is a port that a lot of people would enjoy if they give it a chance and get past the visuals.

@Krull I will take another look, while there is a sale. 👍

@electrolite77 - Honestly, as the console tech keeps jumping forward to a point an annual game release may soon be unfeasible for anything not a sport, ports (love or hate it) will likely become more and more likely. As it's probably going to be what funds these far-too-massive of tech pushing projects.

And honestly, I just wish they did more older, non-existent ports as well. Would buy Vexx in a heartbeat.

@progx - You're not alone. Many of my friends have bought Switches seem to play them more and more as time goes on.

For me the biggest highlight last year was the Turok releases. N64 games, and the Atelier collection. Sure I picked up and enjoyed Daemon X Machina and Luigi's Mansion, and they were pretty big as well, but revisiting old stuff on the go felt like a godsend.

Hell, it's probably why that Mario collection rumor is so huge to everyone.

I'm definitely gonna get around to it soon. I have a beast PC I could run it on, but honestly the portability is crucial for my life right now. It's on sale a lot, and I can definitely see some big Memorial Day discounts coming up.

I picked it up for PS4 on the last sale when it was $15.

Hmm.... I have both an Xbox One S and a PS4 and I still have not played this game.

I really need to catch up on games from the current Gen.

Switch ports don’t sell good, I’ve said it a thousand times. When the games are always delayed for months to get it working on switch and then major graphic downgrades don’t help also.

@PuppyToucher 1.5-2 mil for a third party game on a nintendo console is almost unheard of. If it manages those numbers (which I actually think it might, I'm not disagreeing with you) it would be a huge win for CDPR, Saber Interactive and Nintendo.

@HardcoreDaBoss Game is probably over a mil by now. Any late port that breaks a million or gets close to it is a success, I doubt it cost that much money for CDPR and Saber Interactive to get this thing up and running on Switch.

@Chowdaire I agree the game is definitely a success on the switch, no question about that. I as a fan was just hoping for it to be a runaway success like some of Nintendo’s first party games have become. This port was done in such a quality manner it’s a shame that more of the switch player base won’t actually get to experience it.

@HardcoreDaBoss not sure if you are being serious with the “switch ports don’t sell” comment. Pretty sure switch ports sell very well and that is why Nintendo and 3rd party companies are so quick to bring their old games over to the switch. Nintendo has Wii U ports that sell better on switch and 3rd parties have had enough success to keep bringing more and more franchises, look at Bethesda and Ubisoft as examples. 2k is now getting into the mix and dropping tons of ports in May. Companies don’t do that if they don’t think they get a solid return on time and money invested.

Excellent game,
Just arrived in Toussaint and its absolutely beautiful. Quick heads up for anyone who wants a 4K experience. Buy an M cable!

@Ralizah Still a better game than anything Nintendo puts out these days XD