But Valve does publish on Nintendo's eShop.

They do?

They do have one game there: https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/portal-companion-col...

Huh, missed the news in that one coming out. Thanks.

Apart from this being false as mentioned by other replies, Nintendo is a large player in the space with a big legal department. It could be a good strategic move not to piss them off.

None at all? Then how did portal end up on my switch?

Never say never. Look at Sega.

Even Sony and Microsoft are now publishing their recent Greatest Hits on Steam!

isnt that the sane option just keep the steam price higher than your own price and people would mostly prefer to buy directly to save money, then you get the exposure from steam but you can convert them to your platform.

Well they are also discovering that many people would rather pay the 20-30% extra than deal with the hassle of a subpar platform.

The cost to build/maintain a competent platform is also not cheap even for the big boys like EA.

I think Valve has a clause in the contract that says the price on other platforms should be as low as the price on steam at most.

Otherwise everybody could just use Steam as advertising platform.

Of course I have no idea how contracts for big companies work

I think there's some limit to that; Nintendo could sell the new Zelda for $250 on Steam and get some takers, but it won't make them more money just make them look greedy.

Sega do not produce games to drive console sales. Nintendo's games rarely, if ever, hit other platforms.

Which speaks to his point, once upon a time Sega would hog their IPs for their console and arcade games.

They changed their strat abt a decade ago.

They changed after they exited the console market.

If Nintendo ever exit the console market then we can have that conversation about Nintendo IP on Stream. But if that happens, and it is a massive IF, that’s not going to happen for a long time.

They were dipping toes in the water even before their console market exit. Specifically, Comix Zone in 1995 [0], as well as Sonic CD and Virtua Fighter PC in 1996[1]

[0] - There were other Sega games published in 1995, but the examples I mention are titles specifically developed in house by Sega rather than titles by a 3rd party that they published.

[1] - Politely ignoring that whole NV1 debacle here, since it was in the end a very niche card.

If it happens, Nintendo has a long memory. Better to get on their good side now.

They were very much in the console business for a long time.

Would you elaborate on "no working relationship?"

I was wondering things along these lines.

I don't see there being a 0% chance (though admittedly a low one) that they bundle some of their back catalogue with an emulator and release the titles on PC (like Sega on Android/iOS).

If they think the value of those sales would exceed the value added to the switch of eg Mario kart 64 being exclusive, then it'd make sense.

Why back catalogue? Modern switch games on PC would appeal to a significant audience.

Nintendo only sells hardware because of exclusive titles. I think it's also unlikely that anyone on PC will pay $90 for a new title more than 3 months after release.

No, but who said it had to be full price?

Sony has shown that people are willing to pay $50-60 for games that are a few years old but newly released on PC. See God of War, Horizon, Spider-Man, and I think there were a few more too.

True, but I think there is a much better argument in favour of gating the IP to promote switch hardware sales.

(Again, from the perspective of Nintendo. It'd obviously be great if they released these things on different platforms from a user perspective)

How would their partners feel about how they treat others intellectual property?

Whether they are or not, it would be foolish to make any move that suggests they don't care about IP. That's how their partners make money on Steam.

Strong opinions here