At that time staggered launches were more common. PS2 released in March in Japan, in October in the US, in November in europe. But more importantly, Sony was expanding it's distribution in more countries worldwide that gen (which is to this day the reason for Playstations strength in the rest of the world), which means it got into more countries even later in the lifecycle. Add to that, that it was unchallanged leader that gen and got lots of third-party support and that the PS3 struggled out of the gate which gave PS2 a second wind. All together explains why PS2 started slower but sold constantly over a very, very long timeframe.

I think if the third party titles are exclusives (like with 3DS and DS before it and even Wii a bit), then you may be incorrect in your analysis. It will not be about power when there is only one place to play the game. Nobody cares about the power of Switch when they know the only place to play Shin Megami Tensi 5 is on Switch. Get enough games like that and the case you make will evaporate.

oh if it's exclusive third party stuff then yeah that changes things.  If it's just what's been happening with late ports or simultaneous I don't see it making much difference.  Well it will more commuting parts of the world like Japan, but I don't see third party devs ignoring PS4 when it has a big presence in Japan and everywhere else, can handle more than Switch can, and is easy to port to unlike PS3 was.  A 100m install base is tough to ignore.

I kind of threw that post together in a hurry. What I meant was that, unless two systems launch at the same time of the year, LTD sales aren't an accurate comparison of their overall performance. That's why instead of LTD comparisons when discussing Switch sales, I prefer to do comparisons that look more like this:

I might whip up such a chart tomorrow. I'd have to assemble a fair amount of data. But while in the long term the differences in launch timing matters less for relative tracking, when you're only two years in, it still makes a significant amount of difference.

The Switch is getting worse third party support than the Wii. While it's true it has much, much better indie support, it's getting barely any third party games that actually sell systems. For example, you can knock it all you want, but there's a fairly large casual demographic that only plays games like Call of Duty, Battlefield and Madden that could have a good time on the Wii that have nothing to play on the Switch, and it doesn't look like that's improving in the near future. Top that off with PS5 and Xbox One Two on the horizon, and I think if anything, third party support might actually get worse.

It seems to me that you're confusing the "casual crowd" with the "I only play Nintendo first party titles and play indies between major first party Nintendo releases" crowd. Just look at how games are selling on the Switch. The disparity between first party sales and third party sales on the Switch might actually be greater than any other Nintendo console. You have iconic first party games on pace to sell better than they ever have before (if they haven't already), and with few exceptions like Octopath Traveller, there's pretty much nothing in between besides several hundred 50K - 500K sale indie games. Between black Friday of last year and Black Friday of 2019, what exactly is coming to the Switch that is going to drive sales for a casual fan? Fire Emblem? Animal Crossing? That's not exactly the same tier as Zelda, Mario, Mario Kart etc. I'd count Pokemon, but I bet most of the Pokemon crowd already bought a Switch for Let's Go. As for that title that Nintendo teases fans are going to be excited for? I bet it's a port of Mario Maker, or yet another repurposed Wii U title since Nintendo knows its pretty much up to them and them alone to feed the game stream.

And for the record, it appears I'm in the "I only play major Nintendo first party titles, and might pick up third party games I don't already own if I value playing them on the go more than I do a better home experience". For me, that means there is almost nothing on the horizon out of the Nintendo camp that looks appealing to me. I could go for a new Mario Golf or Star Fox, but outside of that, everything I wanted to get on my Switch has pretty much been released already, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.  I sure hope Nintendo has some surprises going forward, otherwise the Switch is going to be getting less and less use from me.

Yeah sure, this is the year that Switch outsells the PS4 world-wide, and it should given how the PS4 is pushing 100 million sales in it's 6th, and the Switch is at peak or near-peak sales momentum, it would be horrible if it doesn't. But I wouldn't be shocked at all but 2019 is the highest selling sales year for the Switch (not that I'm predicting it would). It just looks to me like Nintendo shot their wad to ensure they had they best start possible, and now we're getting into that recovery period from the initial boom with much stiffer competition on the horizon, so Nintendo has it's work cut out for them to maintain that momentum, especially with what they have announced so far. I sure hope they do it though, I've had a lot of fun with my Switch so far.

That's not exactly true, games like Fortnite, Skyrim, Doom, Wolfenstein, Diablo 3, Dark Souls, Mortal Kombat 11, Civ VI, main Final Fantasy games (despite they are old ports)...are big deal for some people.

Also, 3rd party support is improving with time, but seems you fail to see that, comparision below clearly shows that.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=238576&page=1

Let's see. popular game, old port, old port, old port, old port, fighting game, RTS, old port.

Besides that, not exactly a long list, and the vast majority of it are old ports, many of which have little replay value. That's exactly my point. Like great, The Switch is the best option in 2019 to play games you could have played on your Xbox 360 years ago. How is this going to move as many consoles as Pokemon and Smash Bros did last year?

As for your post, you took a snippet of announced games from two different years, compared the number (many of which, again, are old ports), and decided that was enough to say that "third party support was increasing". Sorry man, that's now things actually work. If you want to pretend that any of that list makes the Switch a much more lucrative buy in 2019 to your average prospective buyer when titles like Smash Bros, Mario Odyssey, BotW, Mario Kart etc. weren't enough to compel a purchase. Well, you're welcome to think that, but I won't,

Pokemon Gen 8, Animal Crossing, Mario Maker 2, new 3D Zelda, new 3D Mario, Mario Kart 9...than smaller ones like Fire Emblem, Metroid Prime, Pikmin, 2D Zelda, Lugis Mansion..