Switch Sales Predictions: Open Your Eyes - UPDATE: Switch LTD Shipments Reach 111.08m by June 30th, Forecast for Current Fiscal Year Remains at 21.0m

[peachbuggy]

RolStoppable said:

Asriel said:
Great work, Rol. How do you see Labo performing, out of curiosity?

That's very hard to say because there's no precedence for this exact type of product. There's a lot of potential because it's a novel idea and at least the Variety Kit caters to many different interests. The Robot Kit is much more limited because its premise is tailored to boys, and it already shows in the early sales data we got from Japan (Variety Kit outsold Robot Kit by 3:1).

I think the Variety Kit will perform well enough for Nintendo to roll out new kits in addition to the current ones, so Labo will be more than just two games. The primary target demographic (6-12 year old kids) of Labo will skew the effect on hardware sales heavily towards the holiday season, because kids don't have $350+ lying around, so they are dependent on gifts and Christmas always trumps birthdays and is always on the same day of the year for everyone. If Labo manages to stay relevant for a few years, the hardware price of Switch will eventually be less of a barrier. Labo could become similar to Skylanders. As in, being a hot item among kids that everyone needs to have. 

zorg1000 has said that he can see Labo becoming as big as Wii Fit, Brain Training and Nintendogs, but I don't see a success story of that magnitude. It's plausible that the Variety Kit sells 5m+ in its lifetime, but that's still a far cry from the aforementioned games. Maybe if all Labo Kits were added up, then we could get to 20m+, but that's cheating. 10m for all kits combined is as high as I am inclined to go at this point in time. Chances are that future kits are more specific like the Robot one and therefore less appealing.

In the current fiscal year that is forecasted to have shipments of 20m Switch units, Nintendo must be confident in what they have with Labo, Super Smash Bros. and possibly Pokémon or a big unannounced title. They are basically banking on a 10m holiday quarter because Q1 of this fiscal year will be ~3m and Q2 won't be much better. They need 10m during the holiday quarter and close out the fiscal year with a Q4 of ~3.5m.

If i were to guess, Smash for September, Animal Crossing and Mario Party for holidays, Pokemon Q4/Feb '19 or so. As for LABO, given that it will appeal to different demographic and likely home to several internet memes/videos, i can see it legging it out to maybe even 10m (Variety pack) over a long period of time. Subsequent and Robot kits decent sales but not up to variety levels. The steering wheel and pedal model leads me to hope for a LABO racing for the holidays. I think LABO is appealing to different types of consumer that exist on the Switch atm too, so i see it driving decent HW sales too, especially during the holidays. If this indeed Nintendo's release schedule, then i see the 20m figure being reached comfortably.