last year it had 3d mario which was never a big franchise in japan, even though the game sold amazing in japan, this year it had pokemon, which is the biggest franchise in the world and huge in japan, add to the fact that pokemon launched nov 16 vs october 26, its not bad numbers, but honestly i been  negative on switch sales but if you look at my history, i expected japan to be way up.  

I wouldn't call it ambitious since er are entering the biggest month of the year for console sales.

Last year's sales for next week are 168K. The Switch should be comfortably up. 

Last year's sales below.

Week 49 = 164.908 (this is the Smash week)
Week 50 = 221.210
Week 51 = 269.684
Week 52 = 134.519
Week 1 2018 = 146.006

Yeah, Smash launch is in two days (07. December), and next week sales will cover 03-09. December sales.

A flop Pokémon game wouldn’t boost the switch.

All up to smash now.

What are the YTD and lifetime numbers for PS4 and Switch, if anyone knows?

With the 5K yen price drop on both the base model and Pro with the inclusion of two Sony games (as well as VR price cut) and a better selection of better received games, that should bring the PS4 to flat to last year (the deals lasts five weeks), maybe slightly up. Last year at this time the PS4 had no compelling deals for games.

Here is the week 48 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.

So yeah, inevitable math is kicking in for both systems with PS4's AWN raising by 25k and Switch's AWN raising by 50k. That means that both systems performed almost equally this week relative to their remaining goal. Switch cruised past 2.5 million. Big question now is how much can December do. November was an improvement with Pokemon's release and some holiday increases, but it looks like December will have to be the big mover for the Switch. As for PS4 Sony has a solid deal going in terms of price-cut + free digital games for the rest of the year, so if PS4 remains as dead as it has so far that'll be an extremely disappointing performance. My personal estimate overshot both consoles a bit this week but not too bad.

Personal Estimates

NS: 120k, 145k, 240k, 200k, 295k, 250k = 1.25m would end just above 3.5 mil for the calendar year.

PS4: 20k, 25k, 30k, 25k, 40k, 30k = 170k would end up just above 1.5 mil for the calendar year.

You just switched from saying Smash should do this to it can do those numbers because of the time of year. My response was to your belief Smash will move a lot of console and nothing more. It is an ambitious line of thinking (that means your specific thought expressed). I do not believe Smash will sell a lot of consoles; however, it is quite possible that the time of year has a big affect on sales next week.

Pokemon failed to gain traction in Japan compared to other countries which are similar or better than X/Y performances.

Sorry I should have clarified. with Smash Launching, a massively anticipated game that surely a lot of people are waiting to buy a Switch for, as well as the holiday season and time of year, the Switch should be up.