So... Will Nintendo be able to ship those 20 million Switch units?

[Sordel]

It's complicated.

In the first place, we don't know what percentage of the hardcore Pokémon and Smash fans already own a Switch, and we don't know what the crossover is between those two groups. We do know that both games will drive sales, but surely it would be conservative to say that they must add at least a three million unit sales bump, as well as becoming a driver for organic sales. Could be far more. This will be the best-looking Pokémon ever and it has the promise of a core game coming a year later, so if that takes off that's your twenty million right there.

Then there's LABO, which seems to have been a solid but unspectacular success so far. Kids like it, but parents love it, and that is bound to loosen purse strings come the first LABO holidays. A lot of families are going to like the visual of Gramps and Little Timmy building toys while the Turkey roasts.

Along the same lines, I know for a fact that there are still families playing Mario Party on the original Wii: that's their party game, and the presence of a new Mario Party will again count for something come the holidays.

The biggest imponderable may be Fortnite because we don't know yet how many people will buy a Switch just to be their Fortnite machine. People who started on mobile phone and now want to move to “proper” controls may well buy a Switch for that, even if they wouldn't normally buy a console. Could be a big factor or might count for little.

Overall, I can't see any reason why the twenty million can't be hit but it will require that Nintendo gets lucky with one or two of these elements.