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Skipmore's Kamiko sells 150,000 on Switch

Two-person Japanese studio sees a big return on Nintendo's new console

Skipmore's Kamiko has sold 150,000 units worldwide on the Switch eShop, another indicator of the exposure even small teams can get on Nintendo's new console.

Kamiko, a Switch exclusive, was developed by the two-person Japanese studio Skipmore in around four months - per Nintendo Life. It was published by Flyhigh Works and Circle Entertainment at the end of April, at a relatively low $4.99 price-point.

Circle Entertainment announced the 150,000 sales milestone on Twitter yesterday, a great return on investment considering the scale of the project and the price. Kamiko certainly plays up to Nintendo's lineage, evoking the early Zelda games on the NES and SNES - an approach that worked well for Yacht Club Games with Shovel Knight on Wii U.

Indie games have been an unexpectedly significant part of the messaging around the Switch since the time of its launch. With Nintendo committed to a steady cadence of its first-party titles, the 60 indie games it promised would be released back in March added much needed value to the console's first year. In August, a further 20 titles were added to the slate for this year and next.

Various developers have reported stronger sales of the Switch versions of their games, and even Sony Music Entertainment has targeted the console as a lucrative platform to serve as an indie publisher.

However, the rate of releases is gathering pace, and the opportunity that Skipmore's Kamiko embraced may already be disappearing. GamesIndustry.biz asked a range of Switch developers about how far the market is from becoming saturated - you can read it here.

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Matthew Handrahan

Editor-in-Chief

Matthew Handrahan joined GamesIndustry in 2011, bringing long-form feature-writing experience to the team as well as a deep understanding of the video game development business. He previously spent more than five years at award-winning magazine gamesTM.