NIS America revealed that their software releases on Nintendo Switch are outselling their PlayStation 4 counterparts 2 to 1. In an interview with the UK magazine MCV, NIS America president Takuro Yamashita explained that these positive sales means the company wants to bring even more games to the hybrid platform. The publisher already has SNK Heroines in the cards for the Switch, along with a PS4 version.
[Nintendo] supports us in a good way. Compared to that, Sony is not friendly with small publishers like us. They just care about big Japanese companies. Also, if we simultaneously release a Switch version and a PS4 version of the same title, currently the sales trend is two to one. That means the Switch version sells twice as much as the PS4 version. Physically and digitally.
To wit, last year’s Switch port of Disgaea 5 was cited as selling under 200, 000 units in the west alone.
Yamashita also revealed that SNK Heroines was originally planned as a PS4-exclusive. The switch to Switch happened through a chance encounter with Nintendo of Europe and SNK alike. As a result, SNK Heroines will be a Switch retail-exclusive, and digital-only on PS4.
Originally we signed with SNK on SNK Heroines just on the PS4 format. Then last year an opportunity happened at Gamescom, two third parties happened to meet together outside Nintendo’s meeting room. The first meeting was between NIS America and Nintendo of Europe (NOE), and the next meeting was between SNK and NOE. Of course, these two were separate meetings. Then after their meeting influential people from SNK came to our booth and said “Hey Mr. Yamashita, is it possible to cancel our contract on PS4? Nintendo wants to work on this title on an exclusive basis! So these third parties came together and the team at NIS and SNK decided to go with Nintendo for the western market.
As a token of NIS America’s gratitude, the upcoming SNK 40th Anniversary Collection is a full-on Switch-exclusive. It launches this fall alongside a special edition. SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy launches in the west on September 7th.
