Japan Sales- Switch Year 1 vs 3DS and Wii U

[uran10]

Shadow1980 said:

RolStoppable said:

My response was towards Lawlight's downplaying that Switch has everything going for it while the 3DS pulled off huge numbers with virtually nothing going for it.

Now regarding your Switch sales analysis in this most recent post, it's outright terrible. Switch has been supply-constrained for the entire time it has been out, so each and every week was capped by the supply that Nintendo pushed into the market.

Your conclusion of A and B is also wrong because even the ill-fated Wii U managed to double its baseline after the release of Splatoon in mid-2015.

I actually meant to reply to Lawlight. He was overstating the supposed negative impact of the 3DS's lack of major games. Software wasn't the 3DS's problem. The price was. The 3DS was by far the most expensive Nintendo handheld ever in Japan going by launch prices, and the second most expensive overall after the Vita. That price cut was essential to getting the 3DS up to a strong baseline relative to previous Nintendo handhelds.

Regarding the Switch, it may have been supply-constrained, but it did get boosts from several notable games. The duration of the boosts is consistent to what we've seen with every other system: it lasts for a week, maybe two, before sales dip back to baseline.

Finally, as for the Wii U, Splatoon may have been responsible for the improved baseline, given how baseline sales were in 2015 prior to Splatoon's launch and how Splatoon remained in the MC Top 10 for the entire remainder of 2015. Aside from maybe FFVII's U.S. launch, that's probably the only time a single game boosted baseline sales all by itself, and probably through generating greater interest in the system rather than purely by having new hardware units sold alongside it.

tbf, the boost provided by the games on the switch is essentially how many consoles nintendo ships that week. They had more stock during the summer than close to launch and now more in the fall than the summer. I don't think the game boost can be counted due to the stock issues as nintendo ships larger quantities with those game releases that still sell out. I'm probably explaining myself badly but what I'm saying is the game boost can't exactly be shown to exist if the amount shipped every week is sold out as with the switch the demand > supply which would mean these would be the results without some games or the boost isn't anywhere near what it could be.