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Many Switch players have gone through the process from being unable to put it down to eating ashes. In the list of electronic products that are most likely to be ashamed, Switch ranks second.
For players of the Bank of China version, in addition to the pain of eating ashes, there is also dissatisfaction with Tencent, the introducer of the Bank of China version. Only 20 or 30 games have been introduced in three years, which is in stark contrast to thousands of games overseas. Some players claim that their National Bank Switch has become a Mario launcher…
It has been nearly three years since Tencent introduced Switch to China, but the National Bank version of Switch is still far away from the expectations of players.
Because there are too few games and some functions have been castrated, players of the Switch National Bank version are ridiculed as “National Bank Warriors” or even “National Bank Martyrs”. A National Bank player complained that he blamed himself for being ignorant and blindly believing in Tencent, and was charged an IQ tax by Tencent.
In a Weibo poll of the most dusty electronic products, Switch was also on the list. Experts pointed out that although the Chinese game market is huge, it is dominated by PC games and mobile games. Console games have always been a niche market, and its domestic ecological cultivation will be a long process.
“Your Switch should be charged”
Recently, Nintendo released a battery health tip on social platforms, reminding Switch players who have not charged for a long time that it is time to take out the dusty handheld to charge it.
This can be described as a true portrayal of Switch players, especially Bank of China players.
In a Weibo poll of the most dust-eating electronic products, the handheld game console represented by Switch ranked second. A netizen commented under the voting that the most easy to eat dust is definitely the Switch. If you buy it and sell it to your classmates, the classmates think it is not fun and sell it on Xianyu.
There are not a few who have such experience. Yang Jing (pseudonym) told Fortune that she bought the Switch because of the fitness ring adventure, and she was interested in this novel way of exercising. You can exercise without going out, which just solves the laziness of not wanting to go downstairs after get off work. “When I first bought it, I studied it for a long time. I thought this fitness ring was really good, and I wanted to stick to it, but I was too busy at work for a while, and it was around ten o’clock when I got home. I really didn’t want to move. I haven’t worn it for a while. After exercising, I really don’t want to move anymore, and the fitness ring is covered with a layer of dust on the sofa.”
She also thought about getting the Switch back, but it didn’t work out. “One day I saw that it was a bit dusty, so I picked it up and wiped it, but I still put the fitness ring in the box. When I haven’t exercised for a long time, I just saw the fitness ring and gave up immediately.” She said Say.
There are also players who have gone through a period of freshness and frequent use of Switch, and finally came to a dull period.
Chen Ming (pseudonym) is a moderate game player. Two years ago, he bought a Switch under the guidance of his friends. The original idea was to be able to play two-player games on TV with girlfriends after get off work or on weekends. For this reason, he bought a variety of games, and the two of them did experience a period of freshness and frequent use for several months.
However, men and women still have different preferences for game types, and the two sometimes disagree about what games they want to play. Later, my girlfriend simply gave up console games and took him to play mobile games in her spare time, and the Switch gradually fell into dust.
“Now I still play alone once in a while, but if I don’t have anyone together, I may only play two or three times a year.”
Players sue the National Bank version: IQ tax was collected by Tencent
In fact, in addition to the low frequency of use, the sales of Switch in recent years have also experienced certain problems.
From a global perspective, in May this year, Nintendo announced that the global sales of Switch game consoles in 2021 will be 23.06 million units, a decrease of 20.0% from the previous year. This is the first year-on-year decline since Switch was released in 2017. The reason given by Nintendo is that the shortage of semiconductors has caused production to stagnate, and there may also be a lag in semiconductor supply in 2022, and sales are expected to drop to 21 million units.
In August of this year, Nintendo’s first-quarter financial report showed that sales of Switch game consoles fell by 22% year-on-year, from 4.45 million units in the same period last year to 3.43 million units.
From a domestic point of view, the sales of Switch are also in constant ups and downs.
In 2019, Tencent and Nintendo reached a cooperation to jointly develop the Switch Chinese market. In December 2019, the Bank of China Switch game console was officially launched. At that time, the outside world was full of expectations for the strong alliance of the two giants in the game industry. Nintendo could provide high-quality equipment and products, and Tencent could provide marketing capabilities in the Chinese market. At the same time, it also had a massive user base. Both parties could get what they needed.
However, the sales of Switch in the Chinese market have not been as satisfactory as expected.
In May 2020, in a conference call after the release of Nintendo’s 2020 fiscal year annual report, some investors asked about the sales performance and future plans of Switch in the Chinese market. Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa admitted that the sales of Switch in the Chinese market last quarter The amount is not very large.
And in 2021, the Switch National Bank version finally ushered in the few good news. Tencent said that by the end of 2020, it had sold more than 1 million Switch consoles in China and released more than ten popular Switch games. This is also the first time Tencent has disclosed the sales results of the Switch National Bank version, and it is also the only time so far.
In the domestic console game market, the annual sales of 1 million units is already a good result, but this figure accounts for only single digits in the global annual sales of Switch, which is obviously not the target level at the beginning of the cooperation between the two parties.
The National Bank version of the Switch has also been complained by many domestic players. There are too few games that can be played, and some functions are missing, which have become the main pain points.
At first, there was only one National Bank game that was launched with the Switch National Bank version device, and it will increase to 13 in 2020, and it has reached 20 or 30 games at present, but there is still a huge gap between the thousands of games in the overseas version; In addition, although the Switch National Bank version can run overseas game cartridges, it does not support DLC (extended content of the game).
Under this situation, users who purchased the National Bank version of Switch were ridiculed by the outside world as “National Bank Warriors” or even “National Bank Martyrs”.
A Switch National Bank version user complained on social media, “In fact, it’s nice to call National Bank users martyrs. It’s a joking joke for people who didn’t buy National Bank. We National Bank Switch users don’t call ourselves that. , Generally, we call ourselves idiots, because Tencent collected IQ tax. It’s all because of my ignorance and blind trust in Tencent, and the Bank of China Switch is now my Mario launcher.”
Is it difficult for domestic console games to break through the niche?
Judging from the overall size of the game market, China is undoubtedly a big game country.
The “2021 China Game Industry Report” released by the China Game Industry Research Institute and others shows that the number of game users in China will maintain a steady growth in 2021, with the number of users reaching 666 million, a year-on-year increase of 0.22%; in 2021, the actual sales revenue of the Chinese game market will be 296.513 100 million yuan, an increase of 17.826 billion yuan over 2020, a year-on-year increase of 6.40%.
However, Gao Dongxu, the founder and chief analyst of China Entertainment Think Tank, told Cailao that looking back at history, national conditions and the development history of China’s game industry, Chinese gamers are PC players and mobile gamers, and there is no console game in China that is comparable to the West and the West. The basis of user habits cultivated in Japan.
And it is.
In terms of revenue, the actual sales revenue of China’s console game market in 2021 will be 2.58 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.34%. Although the growth is rapid, the proportion of China’s game market is only 0.87%. The proportion of the overall game market is absolutely mainstream. In 2021, the actual sales revenue of China’s mobile game market is 225.538 billion yuan, accounting for 76.06%; the actual revenue of the client game market is 58.8 billion yuan, accounting for 19.83%; the actual sales revenue of the web game market 6.030 billion yuan, accounting for 2.03%.
Compared with other countries, China’s console game market is even smaller.
According to Zhiyan Consulting data, the global console game market will reach US$45.76 billion in 2021, of which the North American console game market will be US$20.78 billion, the European console game market will be US$15.15 billion, and the Japanese console game market will be US$4.90 billion. The agency believes that the Chinese console game market is expected to reach the same level, which may stimulate more companies to deploy.
The cooperation between Tencent and Nintendo also has new moves this year.
In May of this year, IT distributor Changhong Jiahua announced that it signed a cooperation agreement with Tencent to become the general agent of the full range of Nintendo Switch products in mainland China. The two parties will carry out marketing, channel expansion, terminal development and consumption in the Chinese mainland market. Empowerment and other related work.
This action is considered to supplement the layout of the Switch National Bank version of the offline channel. However, people in the industry are not optimistic about this, because the current sales problem of the Switch National Bank version is not a channel problem, but the number of playable games is too small.
Gao Dongxu also believes that console games are a hardware + software ecology, and the ecological cultivation of domestic console games will be a long process. “Without a mature user base, the addition of new manufacturers will not change this situation.” He said.