Shadow1980 said:
Prior to the pandemic there were already indicators that the Switch was not going to be experiencing further growth in 2020, or at least not anything significant. In the U.S., for example, its YoY gains in quarterly sales that began in Q4 2018 were trending downward, with a slight reversal in Q3 2019 due to the Lite. When a system experiences a multi-quarter period of growth like that that's trending downward, it tends to continue declining and then flip over into YoY loss territory, and once it enters loss territory it almost never has another period of sustained growth, at least not for a period more than 3 or 4 months (the only exceptions were the 360 & PS3, both of which saw recoveries early in life from initial mediocre-to-poor sales after some price cuts, and then another boost later on when their slimline models were released). This is exactly what we had initially started to see with the Switch in 2020. The Jan.+Feb. period was down 6.6% from 2019. Not much, and that impact on Q1 as a whole would have been negated by March because of AC (had there been no pandemic, I still think the Switch could have pulled off at least 500k or more in March 2020, putting Q1 up at least 7% YoY), but the general trend was likely to stick for the remainder of the year, with 2020 being at best roughly flat and probably at least slightly down (the average of all predictions at ResetEra was 6383k, not quite 2% down from 2020). A system going from declining gains trending towards loss territory to suddenly changing course and posting record-setting gains for a system that's already doing well is something that's never happened before. It was clearly anomalous behavior. And anything that's going to explain the sudden surge also has to explain the size of the growth and have a plausible mechanism. The growth experienced by the Switch in 2020 was massive. Even ignoring the initial spring spike, the Switch had strong sales for the remainder of the year. The May-October period saw a net total increase of 76.8% over the same period in 2019 in the U.S. In Japan, the April-Aug. period was up 87.4%. Never before has a system that was already selling strong posted year-over-year improvements of that size. Like, not even close. For example, after its first price cut the PS2 experienced only 42.7% YoY growth for the May 2002 to March 2003 period in the U.S., and that's with the big initial spike in May & June. If we limit it to the July '02 to Mar. '03 period, the growth was only 36.7%, though if we further limit it to the July-Oct. '02 period the growth improves to 45%, still far less than what we saw with the Switch. The only other times we saw percentage gains consistently over 50% on average over a period of that size or longer was when a system started off selling poorly and then started surging later on, e.g., the DS after the Lite was released, the PS3 after it got cut to $400, the PS1 over its first couple of years in general after two big price cuts and general increase in attention towards the system. As for what can cause growth of that size for such a long period of time, nearly every period of growth lasting several months or more has been attributable to either price cuts or hardware revisions. But those can be ruled out since the Switch has yet to get a price cut, and the Switch Lite is unlikely to be the culprit because of what we saw from its initial effects and what we've seen from other hardware revisions in the past. In both the U.S. and Japan, the Switch's sales were on average substantially better after the start of the pandemic than they were in October 2019 or Jan. & Feb. 2020 (the non-holiday months after the Lite's launch month but before the pandemic), both in absolute terms and in terms of YoY gains. We've never seen a hardware revision have a delayed impact like that. While there have been a couple of instances of a system experiencing sales growth without a price cut or new hardware revision to explain it, such periods of growth were modest percentage-wise, meaning stock improvements or general increase in interest from casuals aren't going to cut it as an explanation for the Switch. If we can rule out all the "normal" factors that cause sales growth, then clearly some abnormal factor is responsible. The only satisfactory explanation is the the pandemic, which drove increased demand for at-home entertainment, which was in turn further boosted by stimulus money. Yet this remains controversial, and I think that's because some people feel that attributing the vast majority of its growth over the past year to an external factor somehow diminishes the Switch's success because it's perceived as implying that it didn't fully "earn" its sales on its own merit. But the facts are what they are, and any hypothesis to explain the data has to fit with established patterns and have plausible mechanisms. It sold what it sold, and something caused it to sell that much. The preponderance of evidence indicates the pandemic was the primary driver of the massive increases seen in the past year, just as it's the only plausible explanation for the PS4 & XBO having better than expected performances (at least until stock ran out thanks to the surge in demand). I don't believe the Switch would have had an 8M+ year in the U.S. in 2020 without the pandemic. |
That's the thing, we cannot rule out the contribution of other factors. We cannot rule out the cultural phenomenon and huge expansion of demographic reach of New Horizons, the expansion of Nintendo's manufacturing capacity, the compounding word of mouth as more Switches get out into the wild, households buying their second Switch so family members don't have to share, people who could initially only find a Lite upgrading to the Switch proper as it becomes available again, etc.
Was covid a factor? Sure. To say it's the only reason though is just not logical.
And again, trying to explain Switch's sales by insisting it can only repeat patterns of past systems doesn't work as there is no real precedent for the Switch.
Last edited by curl-6 - on 21 March 2021
