There is a serious presumption on my end that with the lack of major new releases from Nintendo, and a huge holiday we will see some really huge numbers for older games.
Week 50, 2019
Hardware: 236.625
- Minecraft - 25.036
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - 22.376
- Smash Ultimate - 21.135
- Super Mario Party - 19.370
- Splatoon 2 - 11.154
Week 51, 2019
Hardware: 291.485
- Minecraft - 41.907
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - 37.835
- Smash Ultimate - 34.085
- Super Mario Party - 32.041
- Splatoon 2 - 19.662
Week 52, 2019
Hardware: 234.268
- Minecraft - 40.905
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - 40.883
- Smash Ultimate - 35.385
- Super Mario Party - 34.649
- Splatoon 2 - 21.094
Week 01, 2020
Hardware: 284.827
- Minecraft - 46.963
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - 52.195
- Smash Ultimate - 43.274
- Super Mario Party - 37.903
- Splatoon 2 - 27.455
In terms of Hardware, I expect these final weeks of 2020 and the first week of 2021 to not fall below 300K.
From Week 47 & the release of Age of Calamity and Momotaro, I think supply will be above 200K, while Smash, Pokemon Sword/Shield, Animal Crossing are all getting DLC, Ring Fit a Bundle, Splatoon 2, and Super Mario Party are being bundled with controllers, while Pikmin is the only recent game competing with 3DS Mario Collection. It's pretty unprecedented for Nintendo to not need a huge fall game but that's the situation we find ourselves in with Ring Fit and New Horizon bringing new audiences to the device, besides the kids that will be getting a Switch with their holiday money. As a I said previously this will be the first holiday we can see Ring Fit's actual potential because last year Nintendo simply couldn't manufacture enough peripherals while New Horizon is a smash hit and will become the best selling game in Japan of all time surpassing 10 million physical lifetime sales, in 2022.
Ring Fit will end up being >5M game in Japan, outperforming Wii Fit and Wii Sports which were on a console that didn't end up being as popular n Japan. Wii ended up with 12.75M sales and the games didn't surpass 4M. By next summer Ring Fit will be close to 4M, and I expect it to surpass 5M by the end of 2021.
New Horizon's second year on the market will be strong it will likely receive support and additional updates well into 2021. The game will surpass 9 million lifetime sales by the end of next year and due to it's nature will probably continue to see strong performance into 2022. It's a game that has very little competition, as the new audiences buying it don't really have a high profile 3rd Party game that they can migrate to.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will also surpass 5 million units in Japan next year. The only thing that could cut off it's legs would be MK9, but I don't think that's looking likely to launch before the successor is launched.
Minecraft will become the first 3rd Party game that will surpass 2 million, but won't hold the crown long because of Monster Hunter's launch. As I said a long time ago on a different forum, eventually Minecraft will surpass 5 million on the system, we have no idea of it's digital sales after all.
As far as Splatoon is concerned Splatoon 3 should launch next year or in 2022, it would be interesting whether we see further growth for the franchise as it has had some time to breathe with most of the Splatoon team being focused on New Horizon. Splatfests that were recently announced and the bundle will ensure a strong holiday.
My only question is, could Nintendo basically upgrade all their existing evergreens if a Switch Pro releases next year. If Nintendo simply adds things to the current games that are exclusive to the Switch Pro, while maintaining the base games - they are still creating demand for people to buy a new device. With the way, evergreens are selling, I think Nintendo is being given an opportunity to invest in new IPs, in order to get to Ring Fit, we needed to get Labo.
But the evolution of Ring Fit could be a bigger priority than launching Mario Kart 9 for example. Splatoon 2 is a good example, Nintendo could have gone the Splatoon Deluxe route but instead, they invested time and money to adapt Splatoon 2 to the Switch. As someone who spent a lot of time playing both, I know that I can jump on the Wii U and play with people from Japan right now 5 years after the launch. The successor of Ring Fit could launch as early as 2021 and could see even bigger success or supplement the success of RFA.
Breath of the Wild 2, is set to become the biggest launch on the system(outside of Japan) if it coincides with a Switch Pro launch and includes features and graphics exclusive to the Switch Pro it would be a major reason to upgrade. Eventually, you would need Splatoon 3, MK9, new Smash etc. but I don't think Nintendo necessarily needs to release any of these except maybe Splatoon 3 before 2023.
Last edited by noshten - on 01 November 2020
