| Soundwave said: In fairness, the 3DS was putting up 55-60k+ a week without a big game released. Switch has Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart, 3DS wouldn't get Mario 3D Land until the first week of November 2011. Switch beating the 3DS in Japan is not a given. |
Nothing as far in the future as that should be considered a given, nor any console selling the over 20 million required to overtake the 3DS in Japan. We can't deduce Switch demand from its weekly sales while it's still supply constrained. For crying out loud it recently went from 90k sales one week down to 20k the next, back up to 70k after that. Shipments having stabilized around 45-50k doesn't tell us anything about demand. Also, the 3DS did not have a baseline of 60k at this time. It was still only a couple of weeks after its price drop, and sales continued to decline weekly until it too went below 50k.
That the 3DS had no major releases until its tenth month on the market while the Switch had multiple system sellers in its launch window is an obvious point in favor of the Switch, especially since Splatoon had no equivalent on 3DS and Switch gets a 3D Mario game at basically the same time the 3DS did anyway.
| Soundwave said: I'd say actually it's quite possible even with more stock the 3DS outsells the Switch during its first holiday in Japan. 3DS has a better line up ... Mario 3D Land + Mario Kart 7 + Monster Hunter > Mario Odyessy + Xenoblade. |
3DS had an outstanding Holiday 2011. That was literally its peak quarter in Japan for its entire lifetime. It should not be the standard for success for a system heading into its first Holiday. Having strong year 2 and 3 is more important than breaking their "First Holiday" record.
