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How does this work financially? From what I understand, access to the console market involves considerable upfront cost, so these games will hardly be from independent developers. If the games come from studios they wouldn't offer them for free, so who pays for these apps?

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The business model is simply selling the game (typically in a $10-60 range), and sometimes additional DLC (downloadable content).

There are many games by independent developers on consoles, too. For example, Nintendo regularly releases "Indie World Showcase" promotional videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brNLmMMB-J4

Ok, I understand, the games are not free, just one-time payment and done. That's something.

You probably haven’t seen the Nintendo Online Shop on Switch. It’s filled with so much crappy games it’s hard to find anything of value at all, apart from going on the front page recommendations of first part Nintendo games and other big publishers.

If you browse through the new section it’s full of mostly cheap indie games.

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