Since Elon Musk's acquisition of X (formerly Twitter), the world's leading social media seems to have had a rough run. In addition to the chaotic community governance that led to the loss of a large number of advertisers, the reduction in ad delivery forced X to seek other revenue streams, which led to the discontinuation of the free Twitter API in March last year, and replaced it with three different different API access tiers: Free, Basic, and Enterprise. Enterprise customers who need X user data have become the new "leeks", and the price of this API has even reached $210,000 per month.
In view of this, quite a few enterprise customers choose to part ways with X, the most typical of which is the three companies in the game console field. Following Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo also announced that from June 10, 2024, it will no longer be able to post screenshots and videos to the X platform through Switch's photo albums, and it will no longer be able to send friend requests to social media users through the friend suggestion feature. In the future, users will only be able to download the Nintendo Switch Online app to their mobile phones, then download the corresponding screenshots or videos through it, and then share them on platform X.
At this point, Xbox, PS, and Switch no longer support native sharing on the X platform. An interesting fact is that even if X's maximum standard for enterprise APIs is charged, it is only $2.52 million per year, but Nintendo made a net profit of $530 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024 alone, so this amount of money is even more of a drop in the bucket for Microsoft and Sony, which are big businesses.
In that case, why didn't the Royal Three families even want to pay this money? After all, X is also the most well-known social platform overseas, with 250 million people using it every day, and 550 million people visiting this platform every month.
In fact, the reason is very simple, the social concept of the game is somewhat frustrating for the platform. In the era of mobile Internet, the booming social media not only provides a channel for game manufacturers to interact and communicate efficiently with target users, but also brings players an interactive platform with a strong game atmosphere and rich and diverse content to meet their strong demand for social participation. After all, the game has a natural advantage in the social track, and the higher-dimensional personality display system and the natural connection between users with different strengths and weaknesses provide good convenience for its socialization.
The essence of game fun is the satisfaction of the player's inner psychological needs of the game, when the player first comes into contact with a game, the first thing they perceive is the game's picture, world view, story, and gameplay, only one of these elements attracts the player, it is enough to promote the purchase. Then, when players have a deep understanding of the game, they learn and understand the core gameplay rules in the game, and get corresponding feedback by using the rules, such as completing class matching in MMORPG, building decks in card games, learning skill combos in MOBA, and so on.
At the same time, the social nature of people also determines that when players get a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment in the game, they often need to interact with others to obtain the self-affirmation of others, which is the so-called sense of identity, belonging, and superiority. Eventually, a significant number of players will choose to share their gaming experience with their peers on the Internet, after all, it is better to have fun alone than to have fun with everyone.
Social products are actually a kind of virtual display based on "Versailles", and this is true for any kind of vertical social category, such as PS players displaying platinum trophies and Steam users displaying achievements for the purpose of showing off.
The more frequent sharing of related information means that the more popular the game is, which is why in the past decade, a large number of games have directly integrated and shared relevant content within the game to Weibo, QQ space, and Tieba. From the original "PUBG" to the current "Phantom Beast Palu", their success certainly has its own gameplay factors, but the more important reason is that they have all sparked heated discussions on the Internet, and successfully broke through the circle and attracted more non-target users. In this context, the three royal companies have previously natively supported the function of sharing game content to social platforms within the device, but this function itself is of little significance to console manufacturers.
Because it's never the feature that determines the sales of a console, it's the quality of the hardware and the lineup of games it supports. For Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, sharing game content to X can only be regarded as the icing on the cake, and players will not choose to buy because Xbox, PS, and Switch support sharing, and players who have already purchased will not switch to other manufacturers because they no longer support sharing in the future.
A good social gameplay can build a bridge between players and game manufacturers, allowing players to engage with the game in the fastest way, but it doesn't do much for the console. In the past, when X opened the API for free, Nintendo's choice to let Switch support the release of screenshots and videos to X was a smooth sailing, but now $2.52 million a year is obviously not a small amount of money. Although Nintendo does not skimp on budget in marketing, it certainly does not make wedding dresses for others.
After all, it is true that for Nintendo, social platforms are an important publicity position, but the sharing function of the Switch is not necessary. Because the biggest significance of social platforms for Nintendo is to sell game consoles to consumers, and when consumers have already bought the Switch, the X platform has completed its mission. In addition, Nintendo is not an AI manufacturer, and the data returned based on the X platform API is of extremely limited significance to them, so this is the key why the X platform can't handle them.