| Shadow1980 said: I'm gonna need a source on that claim regarding Nintendo's sell-through. They seem plausible enough. We know that in 2020 the Switch sold 9M in the U.S., likely another ~1M in Canada given the usual U.S./Canada split, and 6M in Japan (using the NPD-equivalent 52-week sales period, not Famitsu's 2020 period). That's 16M right there. While there is often a decent margin of error associate with VGC's sales figures, their 7.4M figure probably isn't grossly off the mark, so that brings the total for the three main regions up to about 23.4M. Once we include RoW, that ~26M figure is probably pretty close. As for catching the DS, the Switch's surplus over it in the U.S. was because the DS had a slower start than the Switch, which was posting good sales right out the gate. But that surplus started dwindling rapidly in 2019, and that decline was only temporarily halted by last year's gains, but picked back up again over the holidays, and now the Switch is running a deficit, one that's likely to keep growing throughout the year, considering the DS's fifth year (2009) was its peak year, selling a record 11.2M units. The Switch's deficit in the U.S. will likely be well over two million by the end of the year. And to further make things difficult, the Switch will have to sell another 8.56M or more next year just to keep the deficit from growing even further. And this is excluding the 1.23M the DS sold in its 2004 launch holiday. I really doubt the Switch will pass 50M in the U.S., though it may come close, but the odds of it matching or beating the DS are rapidly approaching nil. Japan is possible, but unlikely. The Switch has recently pulled ahead of the 3DS in Japan in LTD sales. The 3DS has sold 24.56M to date. The DS however sold over 33M. It's going to be closer in Japan than anywhere else, and 30M is definitely possible, but actually narrowing that massive deficit with the DS is an uphill battle. As for Europe, forget about it. That's the biggest deficit of all. The Switch isn't even keeping pace with the PS4 in Europe, much less the DS. If the Switch gets to 50M in North America (45M U.S. + 5M Canada), then assuming their current ratio is about the same the Switch will probably looking at 30M in Europe, 35M tops. That's 115M, give or take, across the three main regions. Add in another 15-20 for RoW, and you get 130-135M. Unless there's some massive boom outside NA, Europe, and Japan and the Switch pulls off record-shattering RoW sales, I really don't see any scenario where the Switch matches or beats the DS. I think it'll land at a still-impressive third place ranking among the list of all-time best-selling consoles, behind the DS and PS2. |
Ok but why are you assuming Switch will have exactly the same DS sales trajectory?
Switch turned 4 years old this month. At this point of DS lifecicle DS already got its first revision and was heading towards the second revision
More important: 3DS launched early 2011 about 6 years after DS launch depending on which market we are talking about
Switch however isn't going to be replaced anytime soon. It haven't got yet a major revision, nor a price cut and are showing signs of a heavy software support as far as 2022. I don't think it will suffer the DS fate of being killed earlier than necessary, I will be REALLY surprised if Switch successor comes out in 2023
You are comparing Switch with DS, but maybe you should star comparing it with Game Boy. Switch next revision can be indeed a jump like Game Boy to Game Boy Color, are guaranteed support for more 4 years i.e. Switch successor launching only in 2025. In this scenario I see no problem on Switch keeping tracking ahead of DS in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025
