Resident Evil Revelations Collection Will Test The Switch's Sales Power

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Resident Evil Revelations Collection is coming to Nintendo Switch on November 28, 2017. It'll be the last Capcom game coming to the platform this year. It comes after Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers bowed a few months in the system's lifespan, which went on to outperformed expectations and become a "smash hit" for the publisher. Essentially, Capcom offered old ports of Street Fighter II and Monster Hunter XX, not expecting to find strength in the Switch.

It's notable, because Capcom has released (or is releasing) a number of games that would've fit well on the Nintendo Switch. This list includes The Disney Afternoon Collection, Mega Man Legacy Collection 2, Dragon's Dogma, and the upcoming Okami HD. Some fans have even made the case for Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite making the transition over. Capcom's inability to support the Nintendo Switch has become something of a joke in the enthusiast community, despite it actually offering some token bit of support.

Currently, the Switch is the hot property. Everything you put on Switch sells, in part because of a few factors: it's the new hotness, fans prize the hybrid nature of the platform, and the Nintendo eShop is largely free of the clutter that fills up Steam, the PlayStation Store, or the Xbox Store. So it makes sense that Capcom is scrambling to put any game out there.

Which brings us back to Resident Evil Revelations Collection, which will likely be the greatest test of the Nintendo Switch's sales power. Why? Because Resident Evil Revelations has been released on everything.

The Collection includes Resident Evil Revelations and Resident Evil Revelations 2. Resident Evil Revelations first launched on the Nintendo 3DS back in 2012. The publisher went back to the game, improved the graphics, added a new difficulty level, and released it on PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U the very next year. That's portable and home consoles covered. Capcom wasn't done though. They released it again on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this year.

Resident Evil Revelations 2 changed things up, offering an episodic release, like Telltale's adventure titles. Episode 1 of Revelations 2 came out on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC starting in February of 2015. From there, the game released weekly on all those platforms, with a complete version coming to retail in March. A few months later, Sony Computer Entertainment published Revelations 2 on PlayStation Vita.

More than any other Capcom game release in recent memory, both versions of Resident Evil Revelations have been released on nearly everything within a short span of time. If you want to play Revelations 1 or 2 right now, they're readily available. Some games are missing a portable release, but Resident Evil Revelations is mostly out there. The upscale HD versions are out on most recent home consoles. Hell, if you only owned a Wii U, you've had the ability to at least play one of these games.

It's not even a smooth, simple release on the Nintendo Switch. If you get it physically, only Resident Evil Revelations is on the Switch cart. Resident Evil Revelations 2 is a download code included with the physical package. Revelations 2 is a 26 GB download, which is surprisingly the exact amount of free space on a factory-fresh Nintendo Switch with no microSD card. The first Revelations is 13 GB digitally. If you're in Europe, you don't even get a choice; there's no physical package. All for $40.

So this is the final test. If Resident Evil Revelations Collection destroys Capcom's expectations, then the Switch is a rock star of a platform. At that point every publisher would behoove themselves to throw whatever they have, regardless of the cuts needed to make it happen, onto the Switch. (Hell, folks don't really seem to care about the cuts, given the releases of Doom, Rocket League, and FIFA 18.) Because that would prove folks are entirely too hungry for Switch gaming.

To be honest, I'll be surprised if it's not a complete hit.