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Dulfite on 11 August 2021
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Doctor_MG said:
Dulfite said:

As I believe I said earlier, just because a game came out early in 2020 doesn't mean it doesn't drive hardware sales up in the holidays. A lot of people wait to buy hardware until they are heavily discounted (holidays), but they made the decision to buy the hardware months earlier based on software that was out. It's strategic delayed purchasing to maximize your wallet's capabilities. People aren't just buying hardware in the holidays because of the games that literally just came out. Parents don't buy a console when their kids want it, they buy it when it makes sense for them financially. A lot of adults do the same thing buying it for themselves.

And to the bold point, true, if we were comparing one list of games to the next, this year's lineup looks better. But something that I don't see people mentioning that is worth considering is this: Every year a console is on the market is one more year of people already having purchased the device or one more year of it becoming yesterday's news in the people's eyes. At some point, no matter what software comes out, hardware sales diminish as a device inches closer to its maximum consumer potential. So we can't just compare one software list to another, because you also have to throw in the fact that the Switch is 1 year older now than it was last year, which makes it less appealing to people that either want the newest thing or already own the device. 

Bold: Two things, the Switch wasn't heavily discounted and the holiday season wasn't a major boost in comparison to Q1 or even Q2. Holiday 2020 was very tame compared to what was expected. Also, there is definitely evidence for good holiday releases giving higher holiday boosts. FY 2019 would have actually been lower than FY 2018 (not by a lot, but still) for Switch had Smash not come out when it did. 

As for your second paragraph, while saturation is a thing we can't use that as evidence for or against. It's too hard to determine. I mean, I suppose if this was year 6  or something, but even for the 3DS fiscal year 6 was greater than its fiscal year 5. Things are just too volatile in the video game industry. We are only in year 4 for the Switch anyway. There are many examples for consoles that have done better in year 4 than year 3. I get what you're saying how it isn't a sure bet it'll keep increasing, but that's why we have to look at the software lineup to help us gauge. Another way to do this is to look at the current sales trajectory, but Q1 was such an outlier that it's leading to false conclusions. 

I was speaking broadly about all consoles, and when I say "heavily discounted" I also am including bundles in that. So instead of spending $360 for a console and a game, you spend $300 due to the game being bundled for free. Those kind of deals are very common during holidays and consumers are very aware of it. Holiday 2020 was definetly feeling shortages, in my opinion. Nintendo had no idea the combination of Covid + ACNH would drive demand to the crazy levels it did, and obviously didn't produce enough Switch's that year because of it (plus the chip shortages). I can't blame them, those three factors were unforseeable, but it limited how many Switch's could be sold last year by the end point.

I'd be curious to see a chart showing % drops/increases Y/Y for the average console in modern gaming history to see if year 4, on average, is higher than year 3.