Famitsu Sales: Week 29, 2020 (Jul 13 - Jul 19)

[The_Liquid_Laser]

RolStoppable said:

Chicho said:

Week 35 at 90 should be close maybe higher for 2020 week 38 at 239 will be the hard one. Its crazy that switch will almost certainly cross 3M in japan next week. Last year it took until week 46 to cross 3M, that's 16 week difference. Was it you hat asked is it possible for switch to sell over 5M in japan this year? Because now i don't just think is possible. I think is highly likely. 

That sounds like a tbone51 thread.

Ever since the delay of Animal Crossing into the year 2020, I was sure that 2019 wouldn't be Switch's peak year. What's special about Animal Crossing is that it has a much bigger pull for females than any other Nintendo game, so it comes with large hardware selling potential. I've posted the year over year comparison every week this year and since the beginning the biggest point of interest was whether or not 2020 can beat 2019 and what kind of sales progression it will take. In short: 2020 had to build a sizeable lead (a few hundred thousand) until September to be prepared for the Lite launch of 2019.

2020 was on track for that through the first 11 weeks, but then Animal Crossing (and subsequent corona lockdowns) led to such a massive hardware boost that it became a question of by how much will 2020 beat 2019. 2019 managed 4.5m, 2020 will be 5.0m minimum. Right now 5.5m looks like the floor and that's without knowing Nintendo's first party lineup for the remaining five months. If it's at least decent, then 6.0m is in the cards.

I think even 5.5m is too low for the floor.  Look at YTD sales at week 26 and double them you get 5.34m.  It's a pretty safe bet that Switch will sell more in the second half of the year than the first.  They don't need to release anything terribly impressive to get to 6m.  And if they have a really good holiday lineup, then it could be closer to 7m.

All of this assumes that they have enough supply to sell that much of course.  Going from 4.5m to 7m would be a hell of an upgrade in production.