February NPD 2020 thread

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Shadow1980 said:

xMetroid said:

Yea but we also never had a huge pandemic like that in the modern video game industry so i think it's a bit a reach to get to those conclusions when everything on the market is impacted by it rn. January was likely down cause 2019 had Smash momentum and NSMBU vs 2020 having nothing but a pandemic.

Not saying it will do better next year but i think in the coming months we will see it rise again depending on the situation with covid-19. Switch was beasting in Japan earlier in the year but is down compare to last year now because of the same reason, so maybe Switch would have been on top again this month and Jan was really just Smash effect.

The_Liquid_Laser said:

This kind of talk is premature considering there is a global pandemic going on.  Good data analysis doesn't happen in a vacuum.

I did ask "Could it be a demand issue, a supply issue (because of the virus), or a bit of both?" and I did say that "it's still early in the year." We did see a drop in sales in Japan because of the virus, so it could be the case here in the U.S.

In any case, even before the virus was a huge concern I was not expecting strong continued growth from the Switch. While the virus will likely have the effect of shifting some sales to later in the year, I've long had my doubts that the Switch will see sales considerably better than what we saw in 2019. If 2020 as a whole ends up being up over 2019, it won't be by much, and I firmly believe 2021 will see lower sales than both of them.

You still don't get it.

1)  The type of question you asked is a loaded question.  It is sometimes referred to as "begging the question".  It is clear that you are begging the question from the context of the rest of your post.

2)  There is a worldwide pandemic going on like we haven't seen in at least 100 years.  There is no video game sales data from the past for this sort of situation.  Therefore it is very possible for Switch to be down this year and then sales to be radically up the next.  As far as game sales are concerned we are in uncharted territory.