Will the Nintendo Switch overtake the PS4 in terms of sales worldwide?

[hunter_alien]

Louie said:

hunter_alien said:

Well that was the 3DS as well and the system barely chugged along in it's last 2 viable years, and in all honestly, that was mostly on the Pokemon hype that was created with Pokemon Go!

The Switch is in the middle of its lifecycle. We have already seen that price cuts don't necessarily affect Nintendo products in the same way as they do other systems, hence why the 2DS or GC for that matter never really took off. I am fully expecting it to double these numbers LT, but I honestly doubt the 2nd generation franchise titles will push as many systems as the 1st gen titles, for the simple fact that most people who wanted them will have one already. 

Of course, only time will tell how this will all play out, but it sure reminds me of the hype the Wii had, and how many people were expecting it to easily break the 200 million mark. At the end of the day, I have only to win on this, as a Switch owner, so I hope that it will have a massive install base and as much support as it can possibly get. 

That's absolutely wrong of course and there is not data to back this up. The Gamecube did see a large increase in sales when its pice was dropped to 99$, it just wasn't a popular product. The Wii had its largest Christmas ever in late 2009 when the price was dropped to 199$. 3DS sales exploded after the price cut. It's just a matter of dimensions: The Xbox One won't start selling 25m units a year if Microsoft cuts the price in half. The PS Vita wouldn't be at 100m now with a price cut.

As for the second bolded part: Who predicted this, exactly? I'm sure people predicted Nintendo wouldn't drop the console so early and it would sell more than "just" 100m units. But "easily break 200 million"? Only John Lucas predicted something like this and literally everyone disagreed. 

With the sole exception of the Wii and DS no modern Nintendo system was helped late in the lifecycle by a price cut, and let's face it, those are the exceptions by every metric. Nintendo knows this hence they usually maintain the price higher and release more entry-level models down the line. For the GC and 3DS the early price cuts that did help were survival price cut. It was either that or game over for the systems. Those are facts and there is plenty of data that proves this.

By the time the Switch gets any meaningful price cut I doubt that anyone who wanted one won't already have one. The price was never the issue with the Switch so I doubt that a price cut will do more than push the very price-conscious, late-gen adopters to pull the trigger, but those won't make the system sell another 60 million.

On the other hand, by starting at a usually higher pricepoint, MS and Sony always managed to generate a bit more hype with price cuts. Instantly the system that was out of reach at 400 or even 600 bucks, is now 100 dollars cheaper, and again, the 7th generation was a perfect example for this frontline.

All in all, by the time the Switch will rely on a price cut to drive sales, will be the point where Nintendo will feel that there is not a strong-enough release schedule to push the system on its own, hence it won't really affect the final outcome all that much. Now, if instantly the Switch Lite would be available for 100$ that could change the situation, but why would Nintendo sacrifice their profit margin with a move like that? Somebody who can only afford a Switch at 100$ will most definitely not be a huge software purchaser, so yeah, we can count out a scenario like this in the near future.