My predictions

Japan 20-25m

Americas 40-45m

Europe 25-30m

Other 10-15m

Total 95-115m

I expect price-sensitive markets to rebound after the price of Switch hardware gets lower. A strict price cut isn't happening this year, but of course it will happen eventually and towards the end of its life the hybrid Switch will cost less than $200 and the handheld Switch less than $130. What Switch Lite will accomplish is that households will own more than one Switch console.

Up till now Switch hasn't followed common pricing and SKU strategies, so applying previous models for extrapolation doesn't quite work. It has to be taken into account that Switch has unique circumstances. Switch is only the second console after the Wii that went over two years before it received its first price cut, but it's actually likely that Switch (the hybrid SKU) will go more than three years until it gets its first price cut. Switch Lite makes it much more likely for multiple consoles per household to happen, so that too will help Switch to have great sales for many years.

The situation would be different if Switch had had to use price cuts and revisions already, but those things are yet to come which means the console has yet to peak. Switch is tracking behind the 3DS in Japan, but the factors of price and SKU availability will allow Switch to close the gap from the fourth year onwards. The 3DS got a hefty price cut and revision early, so its sales curve is frontloaded; in Japan it did ~5m annually for the first three years, but then things went south. Switch will be averaging a bit under 4m for its first three years, but it can keep up that pace due to SKUs and pricing. Animal Crossing to kick off the fourth year will help a lot too.

Comparing Switch to Wii in North America and Europe has similarities to the comparison of Switch to 3DS in Japan, but the reason for frontloaded sales differs. For the Wii it wasn't an early price cut that led to frontloaded sales, but the eventually completely broken software pipeline. From 2011 onwards (so starting in its fifth year), the Wii only saw few interesting software releases, because many of Nintendo's developers worked on the 3DS already while third parties never liked the Wii to begin with and withdrew support as soon as the PS3 and 360 managed some respectable sales to focus entirely on them. The gaming landscape has changed over the last ten years though, so nowadays the AAA third parties have less importance in the overall console market. Indies are fully behind the Switch and aren't going to drop it because their games commonly sell best on Switch. The erosion of PlayStation sales in Japan has forced Japanese developers to make games for Nintendo and they aren't going to drop Switch either.

Then you have Nintendo themselves who don't have to juggle multiple consoles anymore, so the software pipeline for year 5 and 6 will be much, much better for Switch than it was for the Wii. That's why Switch will catch up to Wii and surpass it.

Rest of the world is a matter of localisation and distribution, two things that Nintendo is more interested in now. They've been translating their games into more languages than in the past and they've founded subsidiaries in countries where they had previously none. Sales will improve over time, that goes for both Others and eastern Europe.

Japan- For sure

Americas- I expect 3-5m less, but still plausible.

Europe- If Nintendo isn't price cutting anytime soon, then I don't know how they will get the sales

Other- Wildcard

I dont know why Europe is so unbelievable, if 3DS can do over 20m in Europe than over 25m should definitely be achievable for Switch.

3DS did 23.34m Europe+ Other. You have 35-45m Europe + Other. So 3DS is probably less than 20m in Europe.

The current shipment comparison is 3DS at 9.69m and Switch at 13.29m (137%). So that would correlate to 32m LTD Europe+ Other. Of course it will probably do a bit better than that, but 35m is your lowball estimate.

Japan- For sure

Americas- I expect 3-5m less, but still plausible.

Europe- If Nintendo isn't price cutting anytime soon, then I don't know how they will get the sales

Other- Wildcard

I think the issue is you're adding Europe+Other when Nintendo now seperates the two because of how much Other has grown on Switch.

For example, Nintendo revealed that at the end of 2018 Asia (excluding Japan) makes up 7% of Switch shipments (2.25m) and only 1.4% for 3DS (1.05m) and has already doubled the lifetime sales of 3DS in that region.

Its safe to say about 20m (maybe more) of that 23.34m comes from Europe.

Japan- For sure

Americas- I expect 3-5m less, but still plausible.

Europe- If Nintendo isn't price cutting anytime soon, then I don't know how they will get the sales

Other- Wildcard

Switch will have better legs than the Wii, but that doesn't mean it isn't on a time limit. Once it finally gets a price cut, it may be too late to wring out fantastic sales.

3DS was very frontloaded in Japan, but I think most consoles are. Switch Lite will fix things, but sales might drop off quickly. After the 3DS resurgence in FY2017, Japan didn't recover like the Americas and Europe did.

It has a monopoly on one of the markets its in any time limit is very minor as the's no real alternative for consumers in one particular market, when GB had a monopoly it was on the market for 10 years before the enhanced version in the GBC model arrived.

Your post sounds like a softer version of the infamous "fall off a cliff" argument. If Switch doesn't accomplish something within five years, then it's never going to happen, or something like that. But new releases for Switch won't dry up and the existing library doesn't go away, so there's no urgency.

There's a Pachter version of "Switch won't sell 100m units lifetime" with the reasoning being that that would be 20m units per year which is absolutely not how console sales work. But this Pachter logic builds on the false premise that Nintendo consoles have short lifespans, so Nintendo must rush to get sales as fast as possible because there's a time limit. In that sense your post is comparable to Pachter's reasoning. With Switch being $300, it's a given that it will have multiple price cuts and such cuts are bound to happen once Switch is in danger of falling below 15m in annual shipments. The 3DS was an ill-conceived console and didn't have it in it to stay above 10m in annual shipments for more than three years, but Switch is a very different story. That's why Switch's current 13.5% advantage in LTD shipments will continue to grow by a couple of percent points each quarter, making 100m lifetime a pretty easy goal to reach.

The reason why Japan didn't recover for the 3DS like America and Europe did is that the 3DS was proportionally much more popular in Japan in the first place. The regional breakdown of the 3DS puts it roughly at 33/33/33 between Japan, Americas and Others, but the market sizes of Americas and Others are much bigger than Japan's. 3DS sales had a lot of room for growth in Americas and Others, but not so much in Japan where it was already on pace to become the third-best selling console of all time behind the GB/C and DS.

On point 3, Switch is actually outpacing the PS4 in Japan, America and globally. It's just that right now we are during the period where aligned launches give the PS4 an additional holiday season, but through 36 months Switch will be ahead just like it was through 12 and 24 months, respectively. Point 2 is similar in that Switch isn't outpacing those other consoles in each individual region, but that misses the bigger picture.

Here's the gap chart for Switch vs. PS4:
https://www.vgchartz.com/article/438517/switch-vs-ps4vgchartz-gap-chartsapril-2019-update/

The different launch timings don't allow a real like-for-like comparison, so the best reference points occur every 12 months because that means both consoles have gone through every month of the year the same amount of times.

Switch vs. Wii shows a clear Wii lead at the moment, but the same held true for PS4 vs. Wii at the same point in life. Nevertheless, the PS4 caught up to the Wii over time and with Switch keeping pace with the PS4, the same thing should be expected.

If a price cut is what it takes to change your tune, then so be it. I find it weird that you don't expect Switch to get a price cut ever, but time will take care of that.