Nintendo's success with the Switch both a blessing and a curse?

[Mnementh]

thismeintiel said:

Mnementh said:

(1) While it is theoretically possible that the Switch sells weaker next year, no signs are pointing towards that. Remember the PS4 in it's peak year started to have weaker holiday sales, indicating the next year sales might cool down. No such sign for Switch so far.

(2) The Switch already doesn't get all the third-party titles. Exactly that was the reason why the Switch was declared DOA in 2017 in this exact forum.

(3) Well, I constantly heard over the last two and a half years that PS4 and XB1 are more powerful than Switch, so it never was the new toy.

(4) You assume the Switch peaks naturally in 2019 so that this will be two years after peak, and you think PS5 and XBX offer something so enticing, that it drives people away from Switch. This in combination should make it easy for Sony and MS to outsell Switch in 2021.

1.  We don't have concrete numbers for other regions, yet.  However, we do know that despite it having a $199 SKU and Pokemon, it is having weaker sales in Japan this December.  Just this past week it was down ~90K YOY.  Will other regions be able to make up for this, will they be flat, or will some be slightly down, too?  We will have to see when Nintendo releases its quarterly earnings. 

2.  Switch doesn't get them all, but it has had pretty good 3rd party support.  10x better than Wii U had.  But, I have already said, this won't be the major reason it will start dropping.

3. It was still the new toy on the block, even if some (including myself here) refused to see it.  It had all the charm of the Wii, but was also portable.

4. Has nothing to do with them stealing customers, as the Switch isn't going to plummet.  It will be in a slow downward trend and PS5 and XBSX will start out slower, like all consoles do.  Especially if they end up being $499.

1. You mean the week that is down YOY because last year Smash released that week? The two weeks prior it was up 66K and 79K though. Hence this graph:

Globally it is a bit muddled up, because Black Friday was at different times, 2018 on 23. November and 2019 on 27. November. So our comparison is this week in 2018 (1.37M Switch) to this week in 2019 (1.63M Switch) for black Friday. Or for the week after (Cyber Monday) this week in 2018 (884K Switch) to this one in 2019 (1.15M Switch). So both weeks are significantly stronger this year.

2. But it misses the big titles that are always conjured here in the threads as reasons for the death of Switch. It will keep getting the smaller and indie titles. A lot of Switchs 3rd-party support are late ports. That actually can stay unimpeded by the release of the new gen. I also expect another lame FIFA with missing features and so on. The loss of 3rd-parties will not be relevant before 2022, but at that time we also may look at first rumours about the next Switch.

3. Hmm, well, it will retain it's features people see value in. True though, that it might not be seen as new anymore. The problem here is, that the new gen will not replace the Switch in the regards that make it unique. So that might not be as relevant as you think.

4. Well, but we all expect it. What you say here is that the release of the new gen has no impact of the Switch life cycle, but that was the point the discussion started with. If you say the new gen has no or negligable impact on Switch sales, I fully agree.