Prediction: Switch will sell over 100 million units

[Azuren]

j.thomaz said:

zorg1000 said:

If we were strictly talking about home consoles you may have a point but you said "Nintendo as a whole" so you can't just ignore the side of their business that has made up about 70% of their hardware sales in the last 20 years.

 

NES+G&W-104 million

SNES+GB-113 million

N64+GBC-87 million

GC+GBA-103 million

Wii+DS-255 million

Wii U+3DS-will finish over 85 million

 

I dont see a constant decline, i see relative stability (85-115 million) in 5/6 generations with one that did significantly better.

I like your analysis. Thank you for it.

You know, I actually felt like doing some research on this.

 

First of all, the inclusion of Game and Watch is misleading and partially wrong. Due to the nature of the platform, hardware sales are more accurately measured as software sales. This is because each unit sold is only one, maybe two or three, games. To play other games, another unit must be purchased.

 

Second, the Gameboy Color and Gameboy sales figures are combined at 118m, so the inclusion of a separate GBC sales figure is bogus, at best. The fifth gen Nintendo handheld was the Virtual Boy, at 0.77m units.

 

This means Nintendo has one generation without a proper handheld; the NES (3rd Gen). 

 

So the proper numbers are as follows:

 

3rd Gen - 61.91m

4th Gen - 167.79m (Up, though previous generation lacked a handheld)

5th Gen - 33.70m (Down)

6th Gen - 103.25m (Up)

7th Gen - 256.06m (Up)

8th Gen - 78.45m (Down)

 

If you take 3rd Gen out for lacking a complimentary handheld, you can see that the spacing of platforms has allowed Nintendo do just as many ups as downs. However, if you look at handheld and console separately, you get this:

 

NES - 61.91

SNES - 49.10 (Down)

N64 - 32.93 (Down)

GCN - 21.74 (Down)

Wii - 101.18 (Up)

Wii U - 13.90 (Down)

 

GB+All Variations - 118.69 

VB - 0.77 (Down)

GBA+All Variations - 81.51 (Up)

NDS+All Variations - 154.88 (Up)

3DS+All Variations - 64.55 (Down)

 

While handhelds have been all over (with one dreadful failure), home consoles have had a stay downward trend with a single anomolous inclusion of the Wii (Nintendo's only home console to break 100m).