Assuming that it will hold the better position when every month since the 3DS's price cut it's been outselling the Switch WW month for month aside from October ... 

I think the days of Switch needing a price cut to keep up with it's predecessor is sooner than what most realize if it's holiday performance is to be believed ...

So you believe Switch sales in 2018 wont just be flat, but be down yoy? That's the only way 3DS could outpace it in the long run. Switch was supply constrained for a significant amount of time in 2017, that to me all but guarantees growth, but we'll see!

I am not saying I agree with him, but I don't disagree with him either. Funny enough, for the same reasons you stated but I am just looking at them differently.

I don't agree with anyone that judges the long term performance of any new hardware based on its first year of sales. In truth, I don't even care about the first year of sales, I am talking more about how long it will take that new hardware to saturate what I personally call a dedicated fanbase.

Since we are talking about the switch, I want to believe that there are a certain number of people that would buy the switch rgardless of anything anyone says or thinks. Lets put that number at 10-15M. Less than what the WiiU sold to be fair and more than what it sold to account for people that are first time nintendo hardware buyers over this launch period.

I think before we get a real handle of how the NS long term performance is going to be we simply need more time. We need to see what its baseline is this year. How its selling when there isn't any new IP or holiday season or launch madness to drive sales. It tracking better or worse than th 3ds doesn't really mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Kinda like how the PS4 tracking better than the PS2 (which mid you was the best selling console of all time) doesn't mean anything when its most likely not going to sell more than 130M lifetime when its all said and done.

Unfortunately for you, the Switch stopped having supply issues in Japan when retailers/merchants started selling new Switch units near it's reference price towards the end of last year ... 

3DS - ~9.5M units, December 10th 2011 (VGC)

Switch - ~10M units, December 10th 2017 (Nintendo)

The gap between Switch and 3DS could as little as 500K and those numbers don't lie whether you like it or not ... 

Did I say that the Switch will be down YoY ? 3DS was also up YoY even if only slightly ... 

Shortages = immediate potential BTW and the Switch has hardly has much of it ... 

Um no, the Switch was still selling out leading up to Christmas, the only time there was stable supply was the week after Christmas, when, predictably, the demand would see a drop

Which lines up perfectly with my statement ...

Pretty extreme to believe record amounts of people are blindly buying the Switch. Maybe at launch there's the dedicated fanbase buying just cause it's Nintendo, but no way through out the whole year. If blind buyers were that numerous then Wii U should've sold this much year 1 and 3DS too before it's pricecut. I especially don't like that way of thinking as it undermines Nintendo's hard work n effort, that Switch isn't selling well because of it's great concept, games, and marketing, but eh to each their own!

Sure you can always just wait until the last year of a system to make sure you have the best idea of how it's going to turn out, but that's boring lol. The Switch has had non-holiday/non-launch weeks already, and significant new games releasing frequently should be the norm. Of course the final LTD number only becomes more clear the closer we get to it, but there's no harm making predictions at any point, especially the immediate future. Switch sold as much as 3DS but without a massive value increase, and Switch had supply constraints while 3DS did not, these reasons alone don't guarantee Switch ltd > 3DS ltd, but it does mean Switch is in a better position for long term success going into it's 2nd year compared to 3DS.

Your statement has no point though. The Switch had supply issues every week last year save for one, there was literally not enough supply to match or outsell the 3DS. One week with a surplus of supply isn't going to change anything

3DS sold roughly the same in it's 2nd year as it did in it's 1st, around 13m, and the Switch is also looking to sell that amount, so for the Switch to suddenly fall behind the 3DS means the Switch has to sell worse in 2018 than it did in 2017.

I'd say it means potential to do better, for a example the Switch could only sell 400k or so some months because that's all there was, but now in those same months this year it can possibly sell better as the sales ceiling isn't capped.

This. Nin's consoles have an overall user base that is unstable in comparison to XB and PS. Switch being sold as a console puts it in that category to some degree. Since it is also a handheld, it also fits into that category as well, which has a much more stable user base for Nin. Until we see how many Wii type buyers are in the mix, as well as how many handheld buyers switch to Switch, it will be very hard to guess at overall life time sales. I don't see Switch puttering out so soon and only doing Gamecube type numbers, but I also don't see enough evidence yet for Wii type numbers either, so I'm guessing somewhere in between at the moment. Sales over the next year or two should give a strong indication whether Switch has long legs or if it slowly fizzles out. If Nin still continues with handheld and Switch, and Switch only sells say 40M or 50M life time, that's not bad at all assuming their new handheld hardware continues to sell strong like it always has. If Switch is going to be the future all in one Nin device, they should expect to at least match overall handheld sales as the price drops over time.