Why are Nintendo Switch sales peaking much later than other Nintendo consoles?

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Shadow1980 said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

There were four top selling games released back-to-back 4 months in a row.  That is an undeniable fact.  All 4 games are in the Switch's top 10 best-sellers of all time.  You cannot say that NSMB U and Mario Party are poor sellers as a whole, because they are clearly top sellers.
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/software/index.html

Instead you are expecting a first month sales spike for all 4 games.  NSMBU and Mario Party did not have a huge sales spike the first month like a lot of games do.  Instead they have incredible legs.  This is an undeniable fact, because they are in the top 10 in spite of the fact that they didn't sell a huge chunk during the first month.  They just keep selling well every month (and so does Smash Bros).  When you have several evergreen games that sell a good amount every month, that is going to increase baseline sales.

Also, I think the reason why so many people disagree with you can be summed up by this line, "The effects of individual games on hardware sales are often grossly overestimated."  It sounds like you don't believe in killer apps.  That may be the real cause of the disagreement.  I definitely believe that killer apps exist and cause people to buy hardware.  If you don't believe this, then you should really be making the case of why you think no game is really selling the hardware and then explain why you think people are buying the hardware when they really aren't interested in specific games.  

Re-read what I said about Mario Party and NSMBU. You'll see that I said they didn't have good initial sales. Their lifetime sales are good, not because they started off well, but because they managed to have legs just good enough to generate a good lifetime tally. NSMBU in particular has been quite leggy; while it shipped only 4.1M by June 30, 2019 and 5.85M by Dec. 31, 2019, it's now at almost 10M. Not a record-smashing start (esp. in Japan), but good enough long-term sales to do what it did.

Regarding system-sellers. There are very few games that cause any significant increases in hardware sales. That's a simple fact. The vast majority games do precisely jack squat. Even some games that are very popular don't move any measurable amount of hardware. It's even harder to notice any effects when sales are tracked monthly like they are in the U.S. (a game that causes a 50% bump in weekly sales in the week of its release would only cause a 12.5% increase for a 4-week month, something that could be easily overlooked as statistical noise). Sales are tracked weekly in Japan so we notice more system-sellers, but the vast majority of those do relatively small one-week bumps. Some have a residual effect lasting a few weeks, which is consistent with what we see in the U.S. with most clear system-sellers having an effect in just their release month, with a select few having some sort of residual effect in the next month.

And no individual game, nor any particular lineup of notable games released over a brief period of time, has ever caused an increase in baseline sales lasting for months on end. It. Just. Doesn't. Happen. A system having a good performance in general does depend greatly on the strength of its library, but actual sales growth for periods longer than a month or two is, as far as can be determined from the data, not the result of any one game or even a group of closely-released games. We've never seen a strong lineup in one year (or half-year, or quarter) do it with any other system before. Why assume it's suddenly a thing with the Switch?

This explanation is poor.  Why?  Because it doesn't provide an alternative.  All you are doing is denying what myself and others are saying.  You are not providing a better alternative, nor are you even trying to do so.

You said, "And no individual game, nor any particular lineup of notable games released over a brief period of time, has ever caused an increase in baseline sales lasting for months on end. It. Just. Doesn't. Happen."  What does cause an increase in baseline sales?  Do you have an explanation?  Before a console peaks it is very common to see YoY growth even when there is no price cut, hardware revision, pandemic, or major release corresponding to a particular week or month.  If you are so convinced that software does not increase baseline sales, then what does?