Been on vacation so this update is extremely late.

Here is the week 29 update in terms of the two big consoles in Japan's path to be able to reach the commonly stated (in these sales threads) estimates for 2018 sales (2 mil for PS4, 4 mil for Switch) .

TWS - This week's sales
GD - Goal differential, the difference between the average week needed from last week compared to this week's sales
YTD - Units sold in 2018 so far including this week's sales
AWN - Average weekly sales needed to reach the estimate for the console.

Both consoles increase by a few thousand. Switch's AWN continues increasing at 3x the rate of PS4's.

I think the PS4 is probably going to miss its goal by ~200K.  The Switch by ~1M.

Very-very-unlikely to be off that much for Switch in my opinion. It's up year over year and has more big holiday releases this year for Japan than 2017 had.

The goal is double as high as the PS4-goal. 4M in Japan alone in one year is a lofty goal. Selliing 3M is already exceptional.

Right but 2017 also had pent-up demand since it was supply constrained for so long. I doubt Switch will miss its goal by a million. That seems way too drastic. Though I will be curious to see if both consoles miss their goals which will end up closer by percentage. Right now with KH3 delayed until January and no sign of a Granblue release, I can only think Switch will easily get closer if not surpass its goal. Sony's lineup is dreadful and the only way I could see them getting close is with a solid and well-stocked price cut.

I wouldn't say 4M in Japan in one year is a lofty goal. If it's going to make 20M global shipments it'll need at least ~5M in Japan for the fiscal year.

3 million is still 300k less than Switch did last year in 2017. So Switch would have to fall off a pretty tragic cliff to be down year over year that much with a better holiday line-up. I didn't say 4 million is in the pocket, but that nothing so far points to it selling any less than 2017's 3,312,619 units in 2018.

I think the PS4 will definitely be closer.  Even if it averages 20K for the rest of the year, it'll be ~495K off.  Of course, there's no way Sony doesn't do an official price cut this year, WW.  It'll be $299 for 2 years this year.  We're at least getting one that is the equivalent of ~$50.  That, and some Western games that could boost sales somewhat, are why I think it will only be ~200K off, or ~10% off.

If the Switch averages 55K for the rest of the year, that would put it at ~2.63M.  In these slower weeks, it seems to be doing a little less than 55K, which means more to make up for towards the end of the year.  I definitely see it having some great holiday weeks, as well as weeks where some larger games release, which should boost it to ~3M, or 25% off.  But, 4M is just too much of a stretch in my mind.

Switch sold ~1.4m in the last 10 weeks of 2017 with Mario Odyssey & Xenoblade 2 as the big games, at a minimum it should match that this year with Smash+Pokemon.

Lets say it averages 40k/week thru week 42, that would put it at ~1.9m then add ~1.4m from last 10 weeks and that puts it at ~3.4m in 2018.

Thats a pretty conservative estimate so 3m is just not happening.

So they were high on BOTW but low on M8D.

I do wish Famitsu would explain their methodology. I doubt we'll get it. I can see them trying to justify because they're still the only tracker the combines retail + download cards in their weekly sales. So whatever they report here would straight from eShop/PSN instead of all digital purchases. That said, are download cards even a thing anymore?

ETA: Reading in that very thread, they are a thing. There are retailer ads linked for Octopath Traveler download cards. All in all, I think a more likely argument is that Switch is undersampled a bit. Despite that, we know that Japan is most resistant to digital sales and Nintendo platforms most of all. High digital ratios will likely only exist as outliers due to bundling, big sales, or shortages.