By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Barkley on 23 December 2019
Edit Thread
Bofferbrauer2 said:

I don't see no reason at all for the sales to drop off Rick's cliff like that starting 2021 except maybe wishful thinking.

The Wii dropped off so much because of Nintendo stopping making games for it and instead focusing on the 3DS and the upcoming Wii U, and due to this the casual consumers flocked to 360 and Kinect instead while Gamers waited for games that weren't coming anymore. That's something that certainly won't happen with the Switch, as Nintendo repeatedly stated that they want to run the Switch for longer than the usual 5-6 years; because they don't have another console or handheld on the side to support and because neither Microsoft or Sony are producing anything similar to what the Switch delivers.

I could see 2021 going down a bit, but probably stay at around 18-19M. However, the real culprit here is your 2022 prediction, where you're predicting a crash just like the Wii did. That won't happen. Sales will drop of course due to age, but I'm expecting more something like 15-16M and nothing like a crash down to 11M like you're predicting.

You're right on reflection the 2022 number is a much too steep decline should probably be 12.5m-ish.

The 2021 number I give is a much shallower decline than the 3DS, which dropped 32% in 2014 after it's peak. 16.5m in 2021 would be just a 23% drop from 21.5m.

So if using the 12.5m figure for 2022:

3DS decline 2013-2015 = 49%

Switch decline 2020-2022 = 42%

It's a shallower decline than the 3DS and it's also occurring a year later in it's life.

But we'll see what happens, 2020 isn't even guaranteed to be up from this year, or it could be up a lot more than I expect. But I'm confident that 2021 will see a substantial drop.

As for the "Nintendo repeatedly stated that they want to run the Switch for longer than the usual 5-6 years" PR line, I don't buy things like that. Nintendo have said things like "The NX is a third pillar" not replacing the WiiU/3ds, or that the DS wasn't a replacement to the GBA. I'm sure they've said similair things about the 3DS having a long lifespan.