It's nothing scientific and I'm probably wrong, it's just that lowered hardware projections for the final quarter compared to last year makes me think that they don't have much confidence in their software line-up for the rest of the fiscal year. If that were the case then my most logical explanation would be that Yoshi's Crafted World is all that's left for the fiscal year which would make a February direct almost pointless since there would be nothing new of significance to announce for February or March.

Of course, now that I say this they'll probably announce a direct next week.

Well Direct is never focused only next two months, it's usually in next 6 months, so February Direct would be focused on games until June at least.

Nice Numbers.

14.86 millions ( 31/12/17)

32.27 millions ( 31/12/18)

This means that the Switch misses first place in 2018 by a very small margin by selling 17.41 millions just behind the PS4 and its 18 millions.

So it's the PS4 that finished first on the calendar year for the 5th consecutive time, really amazing!

This is just amazing news. The 17 million however. I guess they wanted to settle down investors now cause perhaps if they went just under that goal they would act up again. It's only logical to change the forecast now and end with a good Q4. Anyway, monster sales. Smash Bros 12 million is insane.

Wowza. I almost feel special for not owning Mario Kart, Smash Bros. or Pokémon.

Looks like there won't be crow served to all those who said 20m wouldn't happen! A lot of people have been spared. 17m is quite a drop. I agree with those saying they were expecting labo to be huge but that never happened.

Great numbers, but now it's time for everyone that said who expected less than 20M (or god forbid lower than 18M) to be trolls and haters to apologize right?

Now it looks like the probability of 25M on 2019 is very thin.

And seems like the predictions people made of PS4 forecasted 16M becoming 18M actual and Switch 20M becoming 17M actual with both selling quite close on the year was quite spot one, who could guess? I now who, people who kept sales curve in mind and made conservative predictions.

With 3DS SW sales dropping YOY it is very indicative of the end of its life as a platform in the couple next years, let's keep looking if it will get a successor or Switch will be the sole platform.

Will we also see people that said Labo would explode in Holidays (more than 6 months after a lukewarm release) admit they were wrong? It was a blue ocean product, nothing like it was in the market as far as I'm aware, but it wasn't an EVERGREEN, it sold like normal stuff, most on the first week and month, then declining as normally happens to SW.

Despite lower forcast for 3m, 17m is great result in any case, like you can see in graph.

https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1090894240559915008/photo/1

Also, you want comment incredible software sales, for instance 12m in one month for Smash Bros, or going from 100m to 110m forecast? :)

Remember when you said that you didn't care if LABO didn't have a long life and that Nintendo would be happy if it only sold a few million? ;)

On topic:

The drop by 3 million is bigger than i was expecting, if comments here were taken into consideration.
It sucks, but personally, not relevant. Switch is doing more than well.

Pokémon was a real surprise, for me, at least.
I had doubts it could perform that well. Glad i wasn't proven right, like with LABO.

Overall, the oulook for 2019 seems to be better than the one for 2018, which is great.

Pretty much in line with my own predictions - as can be seen in the other threads, I over-estimated the evergreen titles and hardware sales and under-estimated Super Mario Party, Pokemon and Smash.

Do you see a price-cut or hardware revision coming in the next financial year?  Looking at sales in Japan, which Nintendo attach a lot of importance to, I'm wondering if they'll want to move on price in order to achieve stronger sales. While Switch is tracking ahead of any home system in Japan since PS2, it's behind the curve set by DS and 3DS. I'm thinking if a hardware revision does come, it won't be anything major - and might just be a new standard model. Personally I think any major hardware revision could wait until 2020, if they're willing to move on price this year and definitely get both Animal Crossing and Pokemon out globally in good time.