We’ve learned a lot of crazy things about retail: how small the margins are, how long and arduous the process is of creating and shipping discs/carts, how difficult and finicky retailers can be to work with, and much, much more. Our big push last year was getting Shovel Knight at retail with the game and the amiibo figure. In an average month, Nintendo 3DS almost sells twice as much as Steam.
Steam is our best seller, but it’s also benefited the most from discounted sales. We typically average 25k-35k units a month. On Nintendo 3DS we sold about 50% more than Sony. The first 6 months of sales on all Sony platforms are equivalent to the total first 6 months on just the Nintendo Wii U. Contrarily to the previous point, March 2016 was our worst sales month since our initial release. In November 2015 we actually sold more units digitally on Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, and Steam in North America (our initial release platforms) than we did in the same month the previous year, November 2014. In general, the game sales are still very strong. Some interesting facts about our sales trends: We plan to release in Japan in June on Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Wii U. Also of note, we have still not released the game in Asian territories. The Amazon Fire TV also released in September of 2015 – which is rather late when compared to everything else and a tall order to catch up to. Although Amazon Fire TV does not have enough sales to appear on the graph, it’s a bit tricky to measure because Shovel Knight was packed in with 50,000 consoles, and those sales are not accounted for in the graph. Keeping our game at full price has been a major part of our strategy as we believe players will be more invested in the game and therefore hopefully, enjoy it more if it isn’t bought at a bargain bin price. 
Every platform except Sony’s systems have gone on sale during some major holidays, but none of them have ever been sold for more than a 33% discount. The Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, and Sony PS4 are also naturally higher in sales as they received full retail releases in October 2015.
Our Sony and Microsoft versions did not come out until April 2015, 9 months after our initial release on PC and Nintendo systems.
Before you save the graph above for your next platform vs platform discussion, there’s a few key items that are worth keeping in mind:
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