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

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Shadow1980 said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

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?

Easy. Price cuts and new hardware models.

We see it time and time again: a system gets a big price cut or has a major hardware revision, and its sales experience a period of protracted sales growth. While not all price cuts or hardware revisions have the same effects on sales, they are the only thing absolutely proven to cause sales growth for a period of many months. Meanwhile, software seems to have only a short-term impact on sales growth. Over and over and over and over again, we see individual games boosting hardware sales for a month or two at most (Splatoon in Japan being the sole confirmed outlier to this). A single game, or even several games released closely together, has never had anywhere close to the impact that big price cuts have had.

Sometimes a system does experience periods of growth in the absence of a price cut or hardware revision, but such growth has never been conclusively tied to the release of any one or several games.

Way to dodge the question. 

I'm going to say it again.  None of your explanations are any good.  You have to provide an alternative.  It is not good enough to say that software doesn't boost hardware, unless you have another explanation (which you don't).  Systems commonly get an increase in baseline sales in their early years even without a price cut or hardware revision.  If this increase doesn't come from software then you need to provide another explanation.

To quote Sherlock Holmes:
"When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

In some cases, software is the only possible explanation for baseline sales growth.  Otherwise, you would be able to provide another one.