I agree completely and wasn't saying that's something they should do, but this is Nintendo we are talking about and they don't always do what they should.

Such an image is only noticed by people on gaming forums, and even then it's further limited to the subset that is interested in sales.

When it is about people who are interested in sales, then of course sales history is something that has to be considered.

First full fiscal year:
PS4 - 14.8m
Switch - 15.05m

Second full fiscal year:
PS4 - 17.7m ($50 price cut)
Switch - TBD

So when you think about it, if Switch misses its target by 2-3m, then it's matching the pace of the PS4, but without a price cut.

Hopefully Nintendo will learn from the mistakes of 2018 and in future years focus more on a steady cadence of new core games throughout the year as they did in 2017 to great effect. They got lazy and arrogant this year and thought they could cruise to 20 million by relying mostly on old ports and B/C tier games while going 13 long months without a proper system seller. They'd better not make that mistake again.

I dont think its point that they were lazy and arrogant, simple Yosh and Fire Emblem was supposed to be released this year also but obviously they couldn't be ready for this year, and they also thought that Labo will be stronger, while they couldnt have other games ready for this year. Saying that, 2019. already looks stronger.

Granted delays can't always be avoided, but they should have planned ahead better and more big games for the first 10 months of the year instead of leaning so heavily on re-releases, so that there were games to take the load and maintain momentum. Betting the house on Labo was also a bad call, they should have had enough core games in place to make up for its possible failure.

Most important is to have killer 1st year, and they deliver that, they couldnt have stronger games until years end of second year and they thought Labo will have stronger effect in first half of this year, so its understandable, espacily when 2019. already looks strong. Saying that, Switch keep momentum despite didnt had big system games until November, that shows how healthy platform is.

Having a killer first year and a strong second year are not mutually exclusive. You can have both, you just have to plan properly and make the necessarily arrangements and investments, which Nintendo didn't because they bet on having another Wii Fit on their hands with Labo and neglected to have a backup plan in case it wasn't a megahit.

You can, but its hard to have strong hole 1st year and strong hole 2nd year, if thats was easy Nintendo would done that. They one of reasons why they had little slower than expected sales in Q1/Q2 of FY18 year is because Yoshi and Fire Emblem were delayed.

It's doable though, Nintendo just didn't invest enough to make it happen. The possibility of Labo not taking off should've been shored up with core heavy hitters in Q1 and Q2. They have only one platform to support now, they're adapted to HD development, and they have had years to expand their studios, buy up second parties, and court/moneyhat third parties. The days of excuses are over, any failure to deliver now is solely on Nintendo for not properly planning ahead.

I dont see how they could invest more if for instance all their teams were hard working on games in any case. I mean they had some very strong games in 2017. some very strong games at end of 2018. and they will have some very strong games in 2019. Failure, what failure? There is no failure in any case.