Prediction: The Switch will become the best selling console yet!

[The_Liquid_Laser]

I got a lot of thoughtful replies so far.    Too many people to address using quotes so let me just try to answer some of the common replies.

"Costs too much to sell like that."  Others have already said that Nintendo will find a way to bring costs down after a few years and I agree with that.  This is not really that uncommon for a console.

"Switch needs a long tail to sell like that." I agree it needs a long tail and it will have one.  Leading consoles almost always have long tails and that includes every Nintendo handheld.  The 3DS already has that long tail and it is Nintendo's least successful handheld.

"Haven't taken home/handheld overlap into account"  I know this will affect the numbers a little, but I think it is a small percentage.  Most gamers end up picking home only or handheld only depending on lifestyle.  For example in Japan the handheld market is proportionally huge, but the home console market is proportionally small.  Most gamers are not owning both.  Most are either home only or handheld only.

"Sony gamers will not go over to a Nintendo console."  I think Mnemeth is the only one who explicitly said this, but I can tell by the replies that a lot of people think this.  I have seen gaming evolve over a lot of generations, and one thing I have observed is that gamers have remarkably low company loyalty.  Wii success does not translate to Wii U success.  PS2 success does not translate into PS3 success.  Gamers argue til they are blue in the face about how great the Sega Genesis is.  Do these same people buy a Sega Saturn?  Nope.  Every generation is a clean slate.

The gamers that seem to be the most loyal are those who love first party titles.  Nintendo will never get people whose favorite game is Halo or the Last of Us, for example.  It is also true that Nintendo will never get people who need cutting edge graphics (most of these people are actually PC gamers though).  Everyone else is up for grabs.  If Switch has the games that people want to play then they will come over.  It doesn't need to be first party games either.  The Switch will have fantastic third party support.  A huge chunk of home gamers are going to come over to Switch.    

One last thing I want to say is that I ironically expect 2018 to be a disappointing year for Nintendo.  Kimishima projects 20m Switches for fiscal year 2018.  I think they are going to fall short of that by several million.  So I don't know if this thread is going to be bumped in 2018 or not, but I very much expect the Doomsayers to come out in full force in 2018.  The Switch isn't really going to rocket up in sales until 2019.  That is when Switch is going to get Pokemon and some significant third party support.  (I'm going to update my original post to include this little ironic tidbit.)