Switch: a multi-wave console lifecycle (prediction)

[Soundwave]

RolStoppable said:

Soundwave said:

There's already charts posted in this thread that show the DSi and New 3DS basically had a short boost effect on both of those products and then sales declined after that short period. You can't really argue with the data. 

The Switch was already a higher end product from day 1, whereas the 3DS and DS were really not, the main Switch actually has already had a Mariko revision as well which significantly boosts the battery life as well.

You can increase the size of the screen, but I question how much utility you get out of that. A small 3 inch screen going to 4.5 inches is a notable difference, but going from like 6.2 inches to say 7.2 inches is not going to be as notable of a feature. 6.2 inches is already a fairly large screen.  

That's not what the data shows though. The DS family peaked in the USA after the introduction of the DSi which was quite a feat considering how much the DS had already sold in the USA at that point. In Japan the DSi lifted the baseline for more than one year, so it provided the DS family with a second wind; that's impressive because DS sales were already closer to the saturation point in Japan than they were in the USA at the time of the introduction of the DSi.

Sales data for the 3DS is virtually worthless at this point. The 3DS was a troubled platform right from the start, so it had to deal with an entirely different sales trajectory than Switch. What you can conclude from 3DS sales is how revisions and price cuts can affect a troubled platform, but that doesn't provide useful data when your objective is to analyze a healthy platform like Switch. But even for the 3DS, revisions helped to prolong sales of the platform. It's just that revisions have a stronger positive effect on systems that already sold well to begin with. You can observe the same thing with PS4 Pro vs. Xbox One X; the PS4 Pro had a bigger impact on sales despite the Xbox One X being the bigger improvement over its original model.

What is "troubled" about the 3DS, it had a poor first 6 months, but after that the price was cheap and the library started to ramp up and it had 3 decent years of consistent sales. It simply collapsed hard in the back product cycle but that isn't that dissimilar to the Wii. 

I don't think we know between XBox One X vs. PS4 Pro which had a bigger percentage bump. 

DS is probably just its own beast, its way ahead of the Switch already and will increase its lead substantially over Switch in the next two years practically no matter what Nintendo does. The DS revved to a different level that goes way beyond just "well just make another Mario and do a price drop".

Last edited by Soundwave - on 06 May 2020