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Shadow1980 said:
It was the DS Lite that caused DS sales to explode, not NSMB, which came out the previous month in the U.S. and did nothing for sales. In Japan, NSMB was released a number of weeks after the DS Lite. The Lite clearly was the primary driver of sales growth in Japan as well, and while NSMB did provide an additional boost, it was only for like a week or two. If you're going to assert "the Switch is pretty much throwing every past historical pattern out the window at this point," well, I invite you to provide your evidence that it totally subverting all the "rules of sales." Be specific, and cite specific data points. As for the Game Boy, the late 90s spike was because of the Game Boy Color, which, while technically and officially an upgraded Game Boy, was treated as an entirely new system by the market. While I have never been able to find monthly data for the Game Boy in the U.S., I was able to get hold of yearly sales data some years back (might have been from GAF), and while the Game Boy sold 2.9M units in 1998, up from 2.1M in 1997, most if not all of that came from the Color, which NPD tracked separately, and they had it at ~990k for 1998. The GBC was released in November 1998, two months after Pokemon R&B. It wasn't until 1999 that the full effects of the GBC were felt, with the Game Boy selling 7.2M units that year, nearly 90% of which was from the Color. Without more granular (i.e., monthly) sales data, we cannot tell for sure what happened in 1998. Pokemon was a brand new and unproven franchise in the U.S., so it may not have been an immediate system-seller. We don't know what it sold in September (the month Pokemon came out) or in November (the month the Color came out), or for the rest of months of that year, for that matter. Hell, we don't even know exactly how many copies Pokemon sold that year. But we do know that new hardware models often have major stimulative effects on hardware sales, and when they do it always far outstrips the ability of individual games to move hardware. Pokemon R&G came out in Japan in 1996, but because of the lack of sales data we cannot determine what effects it had when it was released. But the GB Color did provide a boost to Game Boy sales, which suggests that the Color, being a new and qualitatively better model, was also the primary booster of sales in the U.S. |
I already provided multiple pieces of evidence for how the Switch is throwing every historical patten out the window, making much of the historical data you provide null and void. I'm going to repeat my points so you know what exact evidence I was referring to that shows the historical data is mostly irrelevant when forecasting Switch sales.
-For one thing, we've never seen an exclusive title be as explosive and huge as Animal Crossing, ever, we have never seen an exclusive game sell an insane 22 Million Units in only 3 months. Animal Crossing Sales are literally unprecedented. So attempting to determine Switch sales based on historical data with games that were no where near as big as Animal Crossing is illogical. Cause Animal Crossing is in a whole other league of it's own when it comes to how huge it is.
-Also, like I said we've never seen a Nintendo System have sales this high along with software sales so high. Despite only being 3 years in with 60M sold the Switch already surpassed the DS's Hardware/Software attach rate, and its only going to increase which is typical for it to happen. And the Switch is also on pace to have a higher hardware/software attach rate than the Wii. While the Wii had a software attach rate of 9, Nintendo included Wii Sports, a bundled game in that so really the attach rate is only 8. The Switch is already at 6.5 3 years in and will only increase going forward once the library gets stronger and people have more time to purchase more games. Switch is on pace to beat the Wii in attach rate even when you include Wii Sports. Plus we've seen Nintendo franchises sell record highs on the Switch, Smash, 3DMario, Zelda, Pokemon, AC, Mario Party and more are blowing past their older counterparts when it comes to sales. What all this means is that the Switch's main audience is far more dedicated towards Nintendo and buying Nintendo related products solely for the games. Like I said before, it's not just a bunch of soccer moms who want to try out Wii Sports or Brain Age, these are people who desperately want to play Nintendo games. What this means is that using historical data of systems filled with far more casuals who weren't as interested in Nintendo games to determine Switch's current sales is illogical. Since the Switch is appealing to a more dedicated audience that's more likely to get hype over every Nintendo game.
