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Shaunodon on 14 July 2018
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Bofferbrauer2 said:
Asriel said:

Yeah, I've made this observation before - with 3DS, Nintendo tended to aim for one or two titles that would sell ~10 million or more for each year the system was on the market: 

2011: Mario Kart 7 (17.04 m), Super Mario 3D Land (11.96 m)
2012: New Super Mario Bros 2 (12.61 m) [Animal Crossing, Japan-only)
2013: Animal Crossing: New Leaf (11.69 m), Pokemon X&Y (16.29 m)
2014: Pokemon OR/AS (14.06 m) [Super Smash Bros 4 - 9.2 m]
2015: None
2016: Pokemon Sun/Moon (16.1 m)
2017: [Pokemon US/UM 7.5 m]

We can already see that Switch's strong start is down to Nintendo have multiple major hits out in a single year - Mario Odyssey is already passed 10 million (10.4 m), Mario Kart 8 DX (9.2m) and Zelda (8.48m on Switch, 1.5m on Wii U) are guaranteed to join it, and Splatoon 2 could potentially hit the 10 million mark too (6m as of March). This year has Smash Bros Ultimate and Pokemon Let's Go as the mega-hits. It's not out of the question Nintendo will aim to have three huge sellers out next year.

2019 has Pokemon Generation 8 confirmed, so I'd expect at least one more huge title to join it - and my bet would be on Animal Crossing over New Super Mario Bros (is there room for the 'New' series with Mario Maker around?). None of the titles the OP mentioned are big sellers outside of Pokemon - even if they're very successful by the normal standards of their respective franchises; Yoshi, Metroid and Fire Emblem aren't going to sell more than the 2-3 million range (much like Kirby, Mario Tennis etc this year, with Super Mario Party and Labo potential wild-cards). There will be one or two more big-hitters to join Pokemon next year, or Nintendo won't be able to maintain sales of 20 million or more per year.

What about Fire Emblem? While it's not 10M material (Awakening is the bestselling one right now with somewhat over 2M, 100k in front of Fates), it has the potential to become the bestselling one in the series (which is really starting to become a trend on the Switch)

I'd have said ~5M would be optimistic for Fire Emblem but who knows. Xenoblade 2 blew my expectations out the water, and Octopath is looking very similar.