If Eurogamer is right, How many NXs will sell?

[Asriel]

I'm going to say 40-60 million over a 6 year period. For the purposes of the poll I clicked the 50-75 million option, but I think 60 million is the upper range for NX. The more of these factors play in Nintendo's favour, the further towards 60 million I think the system gets.

Nintendo still had key titles sell 10-15 million units on 3DS, have still averaged over 10 million units per year with 3DS, and I think the hybrid design is a decent short-term plan for their business. The biggest market will be Japan, and the combination of family titles from Western publishers, Japanese support, and a higher level of first party software output from Nintendo should carry the system to a decent install base, though price, marketing and branding are crucial. Nintendo need to come in at $250 or lower at launch, to ensure this is an affordable, all-in-one box for playing Nintendo games.

In addition, I think the selling power of titles like Pokemon and Animal Crossing--which remain huge, 10 million plus sellers--on portable systems could really help NX. Combined with the usual strong sellers like Mario Kart (7.7 m on Wii U, 13.56 m 3DS), 3D Mario (5 m on Wii U, 10.8 m on 3DS), and Smash Bros (4.9 m Wii U, 8.3 m 3DS) now only being available in one NX version, I expect Nintendo have five franchises that should shift 10-15 million copies on NX. On top of that, they also have other, successful franchises like Splatoon, 2D Mario, Luigi's Mansion (3DS version), Zelda and Tomodachi Life which demonstrate they have a range of titles that can sell in the ~5 million range, which is not to be sniffed at.

None of this takes into account any interaction between Nintendo's mobile business and NX, which I believe does form part of their plans, but it also remains the biggest unknown so I offer very little speculation on that. It is, perhaps, the one factor that could take NX beyond 60 million. That is, if Nintendo can leverage the success of titles like Pokemon Go and, potentially, Animal Crossing mobile, to introduce their franchises and characters to a wider range of players around the world (particularly young players), NX could yet be more successful than I'm currently anticipating.

I equally accept that this is a risky move from Nintendo, but I think NX should clear 40 million lifetime, at least. The risks include, even at 40 million lifetime, Nintendo losing not just home console unit sales (13 m LT for Wii U) but more importantly to them, NX ending its life 25-30 million unit sales down from 3DS.