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Lonely_Dolphin on 13 November 2017
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The_Liquid_Laser said: 

I was not surprised by Switch selling out.  I am more surprised that other people didn't see it.  Here is where I attribute the Switch's success.  

This year Switch has been mostly selling to two types of gamers:
1) People dying to play Zelda.
2) People who really want a powerful handheld console.

A really good game like Breath of the Wild might increase console sales by (optimistically) 10m, but that train runs out eventually.  The Zelda effect will be gone in 2018 and beyond.  The second group of people are going to keep buying Switch.  Eventually because of customer base and the number of games coming to Switch there are going to be three more groups showing up:

3) Handheld gamers who can't go next gen until the Switch drops in price.  (This could include a cheaper handheld only version.)

4) People who just get the most popular console at the time.  These people do not frequent gaming forums or anything.  They just look what console has a lot of games and what system their friends have.  These people have no console loyalty and can easily switch brands from one generation to the next.  The Switch is going to get a whole lot of these people.

5) There are a lot Wii gamers who bought nothing in Gen 8.  Switch will get some of these people.  It won't get the ones who only showed up for Wii Sports.  On the other hand Mario Kart Wii sold 37m, while Mario Kart 8 only sold 8m on the Wii U.  So there are a lot of people who will show back up for Switch and mostly want local multiplayer games like this.

So expect Switch sales to slow down in 2018, but then really pick up in 2019 and beyond.  Things like the next Pokemon game or a cheaper, simpler hardware version to really spike sales.  In the end Switch is going to sell incredibly well, but I expect a lot of gloom and doom predictions for Nintendo next year because the Zelda effect will have worn off.

 

I think you are either massively overestimating how much impact BotW alone has, or severely underestimating the effect of the Switch's library as a whole. I fully believe BotW by itself would have done no better than what NSMBU did for the Wii U. It's the combination of Zelda/Mario Kart/Splatoon/etc. within close proximity with more games always on the pipeline, aswell it's great hardware concept and great marketing causing it's sell out status I'd say. I also have no doubt Switch will sell more in 2018 than 2017. Zelda and Co. wont suddenly lose relevance next year, especially Odyssey n Xenoblade as they released late, and the continual stream of games will surely continue with the big highlight being Animal Crossing. Plus stock will be better, especially if that 25-30 million shipment number is true.