By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Nu-13 on 23 December 2019
Edit Thread
Barkley said:
Nu-13 said:

I don't see these ps4 legs you're talking about. It had it's peak in 2017, declined a little last year, moderately this year and will continue declining next year. That's neither great or bad legs, just standard. If it drops 40% in 2020, 50-60% in 2021 and some more later, it's gonna end a little under 120m. If the drops are harsher, it could end at a little over 115m.

For measuring the legs of a console I like to use the percentage of total sales it sold in it's first 4 years. E.G if a console sells 70% of it's lifetime sales in it's first 4 years it has much worse legs than a console that sells just 55% and has another 45% still to come. The PS4 sold 67m in it's first 4 years so let's go with the PS4 selling 120m LT to put it in the table:

First 4 Years
WiiU 99.10%
N64 91.10%
Gamecube 88.80%
Wii 83.20%
Vita 81.10%
3DS 68.00%
DS 60.40%
PSP 57.40%
PS4 55.90%
PS1 53.20%
PS3 53.20%
PS2 46.00%
X360 43.40%

You're right it has neither bad or good legs... for a PlayStation. But it exceeds the legs of every Nintendo system that's been released since they joined the market.

"At that point the switch will be at around 100m. It will keep dropping in the following years, ending it's life at 125-130m."

100m by the end of 2021? No.

They'll be at around 50m at the end of this year, you expect them to sell 50m in the next 2 years?

End of 2019 = 50m
End of 2020 = ~72m
End of 2021 = ~89m

By March 2021 (4 years on the market) I expect Switch sales will be 74m. Legs somewhere between DS and 3DS would then put lifetime sales of the Switch at around 112m.

There are so many ways to look at this and change the numbers. One could claim we should count sales after year 5/6, or after the peak, or after the successor is out. In all of those we could also argue between % sales or absolute numbers and in most cases your list order would be different.

If the switch has a similar increase in 2020 and sells a little above 2019 in 2021, it's getting around 100m at the end of 2021. Speculation is all we can do right now but since it sold so much without a price cut, I find it more likely than not that it will sell those numbers.