The cool thing is that Nintendo still haven't released its biggest guns (Pokémon, Animal Crossing, 2D Mario which is bigger than 3D Mario, Super Smash Bros., a new and fresh Mario Kart, etc.).

Not to mention new IPs can rise from nowhere, like Splatoon, Arms, etc. Labo was just announced and has a lot of potential already, for example.

It will be a fun ride.

Yes exactly and also considering they want to sell more than 20 million switch during the next FY. They are pretty careful with their predictions with the Switch and I don't think they would say something like this if it wasn't a given. It might be even bigger now with the amazing holiday it had.

As of the last official update (Sept 2017)

3DS software sales-343.07 million

Pokemon X/Y-16.20 million (#1 3DS seller)

Pokemon S/M-15.91 million (#3 3DS seller)

Pokemon OR/AS-13.85 million (#4 3DS seller)

Pokemon total-45.96 million (13.4% of 3DS SW)

3 of the top 5 3DS games along with over 1/8 of overall 3DS SW sales belong to Pokemon.

To argue that Pokemon isnt one of the biggest system sellers on 3DS would be naive.

I agree with you that many people overestimate it but 3DS would be a good deal lower each year without Pokemon.

You are basing this off what? There is no evidence it would have sold much worse.

Obviously it sells boat loads of software. I am bot denying Pokemon's popularity. Just its system selling power.

LOL...you pretty much described my outlook on most things in life. I think it is always best to see and plan for the worst case. I just remember the threads on this site back in the Wii U's pre-launch and launch where a good number of people were saying it would at minimum sell around 40-50 million units minimum lifetime (many of course agreed that Wii like sales would not be achievable because of the central concept being weaker, but it seemed like it would still do moderately well), the end result of that was a system that sold far less and flopped. The Wii U burn has made me more pessimistic than usual when it comes to consoles in general but especially Nintendo.

Its a pretty safe assumption to make that the best selling titles on a platform are typically the biggest system sellers for said platform.

Millions of people bought a 3DS to play Pokemon.

Looking at things now 100m certainly does look like a good possibility with them shipping 14m already that kind of momentum can lead to them hitting that target, 3DS after has passed 70m and will finish up its life at around 75-80m and that's with the troubles from the first year which Switch has not had.

I originally predicted 80m for Switch but with current momentum that has turned out to be quite conservative.

Almost exactly my sentiments although i will expand slightly on that. I believe Nintendo will find some way to prolong/rehash the "Wii" series and whilst not reaching Wii levels of success, i believe it will be very successful and like LABO, bring a new and diverse demographic to the system and help sales potential even further.

I thought about that too. They could bring stuff like a new and compelling Wii Fit-like game, for example.

I think they want to turn Switch into an experience. Like, you can play traditional games, you can play casual games, you can play creative stuff (like Labo), and so on...