I think they will sell in the 18.5-19.5M range this year possibly and this year will be the peak year for Switch.

After that Nintendo basically runs low on new A-tier franchises, they'll have used up 3D Mario, Zelda, Pokmeon, Smash, Splatoon, Animal Crossing, Mario Kart (which is selling more like a regular iteration since most people didn't have a Wii U), Fire Emblem, and even 2D Mario is well represented with NSMUDX and Mario Maker 2.

The Mini model should be cheaper this year too, so I mean I think there's only so much price cuts are gonna do going past that.

That's part of the challenge Nintendo has ... they rely heavily on their A-tier franchises to sell systems, but usually by about year 3, they've used up most of those big guns. Of course they can make sequels like Mario Odyssey 2 or BOTW2 type stuff but the second time around it has a much lower effect on hardware because the fanbase for those games has already jumped on (especially when you see how well things like BOTW and Odyssey are selling).

If they don't have a true Pro model and just some lame New 3DS type revision for the base model, that hurts their long term sales projections going forward too. The Pro/X have helped the PS4/XB1 maintain sales, if Switch is really not going to have that, that's another thing the Switch doesn't get to benefit from and will likely have sales peak and then decline notably hard in year 4/5/6 as is the norm for Nintendo systems.

PS4 is likely going to outsell the Switch at 16.95M ... PS4 is forecast at 17.5M by Sony ... that just shows you, the very old PS4 is still outselling the much younger Switch, the PS4 Pro has a lot to do with the PS4 being able to maintain very good legs in the back half of its life cycle when it should be falling off. 

Your notion is a bit narrow when it comes to selling power, Mario Party for instance has sold 6m, Luigi's Mansion is a 4m seller the are still the likes of a potential Tomodachi which is a 6m selling franchise as well the will be another Pokemon title in future the will be another Zelda game fanbase being there doesn't stop it growing BOTW has grown beyond what prior games have obtained, you also don't factor in the prospect of third party deals like the Marvel Alliance one and Bayo 3, Dragon Quest XII will also definitely be on Switch with how dominant the system is over in Japan, what you list as A tier aren't the only sellers. A Pro model is not required for the long term because as 3DS, PS4 and X1 showed the enhanced model's feature is hardly used (In the X1's case barely changed it's position) plus Switch has the entire portable market to itself.

Tell that to the PS4 ... it's an old man's console by this stage and its still outselling the Switch in like it's 6th year and its hardware shipments are virtually identical to its second year (17.7 million vs. 17.5 million projected). 

That's remarkable legs. I think the Pro model certainly has a lot to do with that, its kept the hardware line fresh. 

Nintendo I don't think can match that, 3DS has shown large sales declines in year 4/5/6 from its peak, so did Wii. Nintendo's problem is they run out of A-tier IP after year 3, then they don't really have the same tier of system sellers for year 4/5/6 and the hardware becomes increasingly dated and less desirable as they try to milk the userbase for another few years until hardware sales really dwindle. 

A BOTW2 is not going to bring in like millions of new consumers, most BOTW/Zelda fans will own a Switch for BOTW. 

It outsold Switch which hasn't had a price cut and had most of it's major releases delayed, over the last 6 months however NS has been outselling it to the point it made up for a luke warm Q1 and Q2 this doesn't really back your point, 3DS is still at 75m sales and still active despite being alongside it's successor for 2 years now that's not really a point that backs you either as the platform is in its 8th year now plus Pokemon Sun and Moon, Fire Emblem Fates came out in year 6 and boosted sales even in it's 4th year Tomodachi came out alongside Smash, ORAS and a number of third party titles like Bravely Default and Yokai that help sales all of this goes against what you're saying.

Switch still has plenty potential titles in future, Paper Mario, M&L, Tomodachi, Monolith's two projects, Pokemon Gen Remake, Pikmin etc... these would do a lot more for sales than a pro model.

Zelda averages 4-5m BOTW on NS has sold 12m despite also being on WiiU which if we add the last know total of that version brings the total to 14.7m if we go from the higher end of the series average that's 9.7m new customers and people before it's release were using your argument on how Zelda fans would already have a Wii U. Another case point is Sun and Moon still sold a tonne of hardware despite X and Y already being there.

And Wii still had Zelda: Skyward Sword, Mario Galaxy 2, Wii Party, Xenoblade, and many other big titles in the 2nd half of its life cycle ... same thing with 3DS, the thing is you run into diminishing returns by about year 4 with most Nintendo systems because the fan base for those games in large part already has the system. 

3DS sold 7.27 million shipments the fiscal year Sun/Moon arrived, that's really not a monster boost and that was more likely due to Pokemon Go being such a phenomenon on mobile to boot. 

Wii sold 100m not really a good counter argument especially as Wii's 4th year was one it's best for releases, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, NMH2, SMG2, MM10, Red Steel 2, MH Tri, Sin and Punishment 3, Guitar Hero, Epic Yarn, Goldeneye, DKCR etc... The Wii had come from 3 prior insanely good years for sales so it's a given it was going to slow down it was in something like the 70m region heading for 80m and even with sales slowing down it was still outselling the competition.

You're arguing that because a series is already present it can't push sales Sun and Moon being the only major release for that quarter moving 7.27m debunks this as under what you're saying Pokemon should not have had any impact even with PGO because the fans should already be on board from X/Y fact is it doesn't work that way.

At that point they would just have more 3rd party exclusives until the Switch 2 drops less than 2 years later, at the end of Nintendo's typical 5 year cycle.  Either way  there is a lot of good stuff to come from 3rd parties on Switch after 2020.

Yeah, the Switch already gets very little from 3rd parties (especially western 3rd parties) in-terms of new games to begin with so I don't see how the PS5/XB2 are going to kill its momentum.  If they can't get major 3rd party multiplats, Nintendo will probably continue to solve that problem by moneyhatting games and leveraging their IPs in order to get major software support from 3rd parties like with Mario + Rabbids, Hyrule Warriors or #FE.  Luckily, the Switch will have a large, active install-base and developing games for it will be significantly cheaper compared to the PS5/XB2, so I can see a lot of major publishers creating games with the Switch included, or for the Switch exclusively, to offset the risk in developing costly, time-intensive AAA PS5/XB2 games.

Odyssey now the best selling 3D Mario game, BOTW now over 14 million including Wii U. (So much for all the "it'll never pass 10m cos no Zelda ever has" talk back in 2017)

Anyone know Octopath's JP sales, so we can work out its total?

Also, c'mon Splatoon 2, hang in there, the 10 million mark is just 1.3m away, you can do it! 

Actually that lines up with what I'm saying. Wii peaked in its 3rd year, and then declined off that peak quite a bit to year 4, and another large decline in year 5.

Year 4/5/6 always entails large drop offs for Nintendo hardware, the only real exception to that is the DS but that's never happening again because it had tapped into what would eventually become the market for smartphone gaming before that really took hold. 

Switch will probably peak this fiscal year with about 19 million units or so I'm guessing (beating their forecast), then decline the following year. Which is a pretty normal sales pattern for Nintendo systems. 

Metroid and Luigi's Mansion (assuming this moves to 2020) and Bayonetta are OK franchises but they're not really system selling franchises and doubling up on Mario/Zelda/Pokemon etc. creates a limited effect at some point. 

3DS sales also actually declined year over year that year that Pokemon X/Y first arrived.