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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - (Update: 100 million mark reached!)Prediction:Switch will go on to sell 100+ million units

vivster on 25 October 2016
Pyro as Bill said:
vivster said:
If the 3DS and WiiU don't sell 100m together, the Switch will not sell 100m.

But the DS and Wii sold 250M together so doesn't that mean Switch could?

The NES and Gameboy sold 180M. The PSP and PS2 sold 240M.

Know what those numbers all have in common? They're in the past.

Wii and DS sold on novelty and the fact that samrtphones didn't exist. The Switch has no novelty aspect. It's a tablet that you can plugin your TV. How will it capture any audience that the WiiU or 3DS didn't?



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DM235 on 25 October 2016
Nautilus said:
DM235 said:

Because it is launching in the middle of a generation where it is 40 million units behind the market leader (PS4).  A PS4 can also be purchased for $299 with a bundled game (Uncharted), and where it already has a vast library of games.  If Nintendo launches the Switch at the same price point, it will repeat what the Wii U did and only sell to the Nintendo fanbase.  At $199, it has a chance to sell to everyone as a second console.

If that were the case, then the PS4 should have bombed, since there were already 80 million PS3s and 80 million Xbox360, and they are way cheaper.That logic is flawed.If Nintendo presents a desirable product and manages to market it well, people will want to buy it.Having the PS4 as the market leader makes it more dificult?Sure.But as long as it gets everything right(games, hardware, functionality and so on) and the price is competitive(300 is competitive, no matter what you say.200 for what they are selling is simply delusional) in comparison for what it gives and has, it has a chance to sell.

Now, if it sells or not, it depends solely on Nintendo, with making a great system and having a great marketing.

The PS4 was sold on potential, since it was the start of a new generation with superior hardware. If rumours are to be believed, then the NS hardware will be on par or worse than the launch XBox One, which put it at a disadvantage if they are trying to sell it at the same price point.  You say they will do well if they get everything right, but they appear to have underpowered hardware and poor marketing (they are going to miss the Christmas shopping season this year, and they skipped all of the major trade shows where they could have made a big splash with the general public).  The Wii U had great games with underpowered hardware, poor marketing and a high price point, and look how that turned out.  The new feature is remote play, which Sony tried with the Vita, and it didn't work for them in this increasingly mobile friendly market, so I just don't see it working for Nintendo either.

Can Nintendo still announce something amazing?  Sure.  At this point, I am not holding my breath, and I think price is the only way they can make a big splash to try and sell units.



Nautilus on 25 October 2016
DM235 said:
Nautilus said:

If that were the case, then the PS4 should have bombed, since there were already 80 million PS3s and 80 million Xbox360, and they are way cheaper.That logic is flawed.If Nintendo presents a desirable product and manages to market it well, people will want to buy it.Having the PS4 as the market leader makes it more dificult?Sure.But as long as it gets everything right(games, hardware, functionality and so on) and the price is competitive(300 is competitive, no matter what you say.200 for what they are selling is simply delusional) in comparison for what it gives and has, it has a chance to sell.

Now, if it sells or not, it depends solely on Nintendo, with making a great system and having a great marketing.

The PS4 was sold on potential, since it was the start of a new generation with superior hardware. If rumours are to be believed, then the NS hardware will be on par or worse than the launch XBox One, which put it at a disadvantage if they are trying to sell it at the same price point.  You say they will do well if they get everything right, but they appear to have underpowered hardware and poor marketing (they are going to miss the Christmas shopping season this year, and they skipped all of the major trade shows where they could have made a big splash with the general public).  The Wii U had great games with underpowered hardware, poor marketing and a high price point, and look how that turned out.  The new feature is remote play, which Sony tried with the Vita, and it didn't work for them in this increasingly mobile friendly market, so I just don't see it working for Nintendo either.

Can Nintendo still announce something amazing?  Sure.  At this point, I am not holding my breath, and I think price is the only way they can make a big splash to try and sell units.

Power is not everything.As long as it is powerful enough to run most games, it wont be an issue.Plus, they can sell the system on a potential, just like the PS4.Saying at this point that it could not happen, since we dont know its games and other features, is premature at best.And the comparison with the Vita is horrible.Switch is a true hybrid, built from the ground up to be used as a home console and a handheld.The Vita was a promise to have console-level games on a handheld unit, so its not a hybrid.And not only did Sony drop support rather fast, but all the other features that could be comparable to the Switch, such as the VitaTV(cant remember the exact name), were half cooked, since it played just a small number of titles, and wasnt available with the console itself, so it wasnt a feature that Sony could market for the Vta itself, that every Vita HAD that feature.

Now regarding losing christmas season and other big conferences, it could go either way.Would it be better to release this christmas?Most likely.But I dont think they stand to lose much at a March release, especially since the fact that the year will now last only 9-8 months for the Vita, so its easier to make for a more compelling first year for it.Plus it wouldnt be that far to the next holiday season, and Nintendo already having reapt the bigger profits with a bigger price from the early adopters and the nintendo fans, they could lower the price of the Switch or make a really good deal for black friday for example.Regarding conferences yeah, not much to go on until march, just PAX East.But that could be rectified with great marketing and maybe a Nintendo exclusive conference for the Switch.I know Im forcing with the last part, but that could happen.Plus E3 would be 3 months away, so they could further market it there.

I think, in the end, with the failure of the Wii U and its consequent backlash, I think Nintendo wont screw this up.Im optimistic.



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Soundwave on 25 October 2016

I don't think the NS will be "powerful enough to run most games" though.

It's telling that the demo video they chose to show Skyrim running on it (a upgraded port of a 5 year old game) and not The Witcher 3 or Fallout 4.

Why would they do that? Probably because the system can't really run The Witcher 3 acceptably.

It's a tiny portable form factor, it's not going to produce miracles, there only so much heat you can pump into an area that small before it melts even with an active fan. Not to mention battery life pretty much will cap off the unit at probably 10-12 watts max and that all cannot just be the GPU, the LCD screen, WiFi, CPU, etc. need access to power too. There's only so much you can do with 10-20 watts (docked) maximum. Even the Wii U itself consumes 33 watts. 



DM235 on 25 October 2016
Nautilus said:
DM235 said:

The PS4 was sold on potential, since it was the start of a new generation with superior hardware. If rumours are to be believed, then the NS hardware will be on par or worse than the launch XBox One, which put it at a disadvantage if they are trying to sell it at the same price point.  You say they will do well if they get everything right, but they appear to have underpowered hardware and poor marketing (they are going to miss the Christmas shopping season this year, and they skipped all of the major trade shows where they could have made a big splash with the general public).  The Wii U had great games with underpowered hardware, poor marketing and a high price point, and look how that turned out.  The new feature is remote play, which Sony tried with the Vita, and it didn't work for them in this increasingly mobile friendly market, so I just don't see it working for Nintendo either.

Can Nintendo still announce something amazing?  Sure.  At this point, I am not holding my breath, and I think price is the only way they can make a big splash to try and sell units.

Power is not everything.As long as it is powerful enough to run most games, it wont be an issue.Plus, they can sell the system on a potential, just like the PS4.Saying at this point that it could not happen, since we dont know its games and other features, is premature at best.And the comparison with the Vita is horrible.Switch is a true hybrid, built from the ground up to be used as a home console and a handheld.The Vita was a promise to have console-level games on a handheld unit, so its not a hybrid.And not only did Sony drop support rather fast, but all the other features that could be comparable to the Switch, such as the VitaTV(cant remember the exact name), were half cooked, since it played just a small number of titles, and wasnt available with the console itself, so it wasnt a feature that Sony could market for the Vta itself, that every Vita HAD that feature.

Now regarding losing christmas season and other big conferences, it could go either way.Would it be better to release this christmas?Most likely.But I dont think they stand to lose much at a March release, especially since the fact that the year will now last only 9-8 months for the Vita, so its easier to make for a more compelling first year for it.Plus it wouldnt be that far to the next holiday season, and Nintendo already having reapt the bigger profits with a bigger price from the early adopters and the nintendo fans, they could lower the price of the Switch or make a really good deal for black friday for example.Regarding conferences yeah, not much to go on until march, just PAX East.But that could be rectified with great marketing and maybe a Nintendo exclusive conference for the Switch.I know Im forcing with the last part, but that could happen.Plus E3 would be 3 months away, so they could further market it there.

I think, in the end, with the failure of the Wii U and its consequent backlash, I think Nintendo wont screw this up.Im optimistic.

I agree that power is not everything.  However, there are lots of consumers right now excited about powerful consoles that can support VR or 4K gaming.  Nintendo doesn't appear to have hardware supporting that.  Now, they aren't known for chasing the hardware crown, so I didn't expect them to do so with the NS.  So if Nintendo's hardware is not as powerful as the compentition, I wouldn't expect them to sell at an equal or higher price point then the competition and still be successful.

As for the Vita reference, I was referring to the Remote Play feature, where the Vita would connect to your PS4 and allow you to play your PS4 home console games on the go.  There are some obvious differences, as the Vita required a good network connection to be able to do this, while the NS won't have this requirement as the cartridges will go with you.  There was some hype for this feature at first, but it quickly fizzled.  I am pessimisstic about Nintendo getting additional sales for this feature.  And if you are only going to play at home with the NS, is it really that much different from the Wii U?

Nintendo will also have CES in January, but I think they could have had that teaser video ready for E3.  At next year's E3, Nintendo will have to compete with the Scorpio annoucements, and I fear these will drown out Nintendo.

I don't want Nintendo to fail, but they aren't doing enough things right to sell tens of millions of consoles.  I honestly think they need to start low, grow the install base quickly, and make it up with sales from great games.



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DonFerrari on 25 October 2016
Nautilus said:
DM235 said:

Because it is launching in the middle of a generation where it is 40 million units behind the market leader (PS4).  A PS4 can also be purchased for $299 with a bundled game (Uncharted), and where it already has a vast library of games.  If Nintendo launches the Switch at the same price point, it will repeat what the Wii U did and only sell to the Nintendo fanbase.  At $199, it has a chance to sell to everyone as a second console.

If that were the case, then the PS4 should have bombed, since there were already 80 million PS3s and 80 million Xbox360, and they are way cheaper.That logic is flawed.If Nintendo presents a desirable product and manages to market it well, people will want to buy it.Having the PS4 as the market leader makes it more dificult?Sure.But as long as it gets everything right(games, hardware, functionality and so on) and the price is competitive(300 is competitive, no matter what you say.200 for what they are selling is simply delusional) in comparison for what it gives and has, it has a chance to sell.

Now, if it sells or not, it depends solely on Nintendo, with making a great system and having a great marketing.

Errrr PS4 launched when PS3 and X360 were fadding away, Switch would launch when PS4 is peaking.. so your argument is totally crazy.

Mummelmann said:
Hiku said:

Right, I meant to say the core console market. The drop in pace can largely be attributed to Wii's broad appeal to non-gamers/casual-gamers in contrast to their huge mishap with WiiU. That crowd is no longer here. And when comparing sales to the previous generation, their disappearance largly affects Nintendo, but is more or less irrelevant for Sony's sales.

That's a good point, which I've also understood for some time; the PS4 simply has access to an, on average, more stable pool of consumers over any given period of time. I'm not technically arguing that this is so much smaller now than before in theory, so much as suggesting that there won't be enough time and not enough leeway on pricing in the 8th gen to collect as many sales as it could have under diffrent circumstances, and that there are a lot more potential detractors. And even static devices have fringe customers, consumers who can be swayed into buying other devices or who purhcase more on a whim or due to specific software titles, features or "it" factor. The PS2 had a lot of fringe customers most likely, this is made even more likely by the immense breadth of software that it offered. The market constant for consoles is that people buy games, so a broader offering of software will ensure you tap into the market constant in a bigger way.
The PS4 falls under this and has good breadth that is getting even better, but the problems remain with a likely shorter generation and relying on revision (like I said in 2013 that consoles would in the 8th gen, to a bigger extent than before) and this is paired with attempts at peripherals that simply fall way short of mainstream territory mainly due to pricing and also miss potential core consumers due to poor implementation and UI, connectivity etc. (talking about PSVR of course).

Choices are more plenty, the pace is faster, revisions closer in between and prices are harder to drop due to the multitude of features and additions to modern static devices (like consoles). Consoles are technically cheaper to buy for consumers today than 20-30 years ago, but building cost deflation is slower due to the need for a lot more 3rd party parts and solutions through offerings both in OS, licenses, digital and physical features and hardware.

Put simply; the PS4 (and Xbox One and Wii U) is a static product in a really fast-paced consumer electronics market. Revision and updates will only get you so far and the cycles are bound to be shorter than a decade or two ago. In addition to the pace, the sheer selection of devices, platforms and forms of gaming is incredible compared to early 2000's or late 1990's. For me, this means that 110 million sales for the PS4 is really, really hard to reach and it makes perfect sense from where I'm sitting (again though, I could very well be wrong).

That is probably where it comes the X86 architeture and SOC... for them to be able to every 2-3 years launch mid-gen updates and cycle it on another 2-3years so they keep the pace of the market and don't impact the SW development much.



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curl-6 on 25 October 2016
Soundwave said:

I don't think the NS will be "powerful enough to run most games" though.

It's telling that the demo video they chose to show Skyrim running on it (a upgraded port of a 5 year old game) and not The Witcher 3 or Fallout 4.

Why would they do that? Probably because the system can't really run The Witcher 3 acceptably.

It's a tiny portable form factor, it's not going to produce miracles, there only so much heat you can pump into an area that small before it melts even with an active fan. Not to mention battery life pretty much will cap off the unit at probably 10-12 watts max and that all cannot just be the GPU, the LCD screen, WiFi, CPU, etc. need access to power too. There's only so much you can do with 10-20 watts (docked) maximum. Even the Wii U itself consumes 33 watts. 

Yeah, the portable form factor will prevent Switch from considerably outpacing Wii U graphically. Even if (and that's a big if) it has some kind of turbo mode when docked, all its games are still going to have to be able to run in portable mode, so aside from maybe a bump in resolution/framerate, the core graphics aren't going to really take advantage of any potential boost the dock may provide.

The technology to fit PS4/X1 graphics into a portable like the one the Switch trailer showed is still a few years away.



DialgaMarine on 25 October 2016

I dont know... Depends on how well received it is, and how much buyers support third parties. Wii-U was supposed to sell 240 million units, if I remember correctly...



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Nem on 25 October 2016

It really won't.

It's too big to be seen as a popular portable.
Its too weak to be a popular home console.

It's a cute Nintendo system, but i don't see it blowing up to 100m, even if it manages to take off and they phase their portable market into it... i don't see it doing more than 40-50m.



Soundwave on 25 October 2016
Nem said:
It really won't.

It's too big to be seen as a popular portable.
Its too weak to be a popular home console.

It's a cute Nintendo system, but i don't see it blowing up to 100m, even if it manages to take off and they phase their portable market into it... i don't see it doing more than 40-50m.

I think Nintendo would be relatively happy with 50 million. Considering the DS-to-3DS transition cost them like 80 million lost sales in that transition, if they can stem the bleeding from 60-65 million 3DS' to 50 million Switch units, they'll be relatively pleased I think. 

Plus their console franchises will finally have a good size userbase to sell to, the Wii U's low userbase was killing them internally I think it was driving them crazy. They were spending more money to make the games but having a lower userbase to sell them to, getting back to at least a Super NES userbase size would be good. 

To get to that 100 million range you need to have some kind of new IP (or two or three) blow up and really take you there. 

All the Mario & Zelda & Pokemon in the world doesn't get you to 100 million, Nintendo would need something new to really blow up like Wii Sports or Pokemon for the Game Boy.