Nintendo's shipment number was 79.87 million as of December 31st 2020.
If the Switch sells this year similar to last year, 28 million units, and has a heavy drop of like the Wii, a cliff if you like it would look like this at the end of each year:
2020 - 79.87M
2021 - 107.87M (28M)
2022 - 130.87M (23M)
2023 - 148.87M (18M)
2024 - 161.87M (13M)
2025 - 169.87M (8M) Successor launch here
2026 - 172.87M (3M)
The Wii saw a drop off of 5M per year, everyone calls that a cliff. So if the Switch also experiences a cliff starting next year it will easily sell over 170M units, way more than the DS and PS2. That would basically be a pessimistic prediction.
The earliest I see it possible for the successor to launch is 2024, not only because of Splatoon 3 and third party support only now starting to ramp up, but also because Furukawa pretty clearly said last year that we were in the middle of the Switch's life and it would have a longer life. That's why I see 7 years as the shortest it will be.
Edit: There also hasn't been a pricecut thus far. I don't think any console ever sold 80M units without ever getting a pricecut.
Last edited by Kakadu18 - on 23 April 2021
