With the Nintendo direct, OLED launch and a fantastic fall line-up, Switch is about to have it's strongest Q4 to date in my opinion. This will lead to strong momentum heading into 2022 when we get Arceus, Splatoon 3, Breath of the Wild sequel, Monster Hunter Rise expansion, Resident Evil Outrage and DQIII Remake;
With the lack of competition we can also expect Switch to gain additional audiences that used to be on the PlayStation allowing them to keep momentum in 2022.
The key title of 2022 in Japan is Splatoon 3 by far, the trajectory of the franchise is pretty clear and as I've said in the thread relating to the subject - I personally believe Splatoon 3 is the only title that could potentially challenge New Horizon in Japan
https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/245219/splatoon-3-vs-new-horizon-in-japan-lifetime-predictions/1/#1
The franchise has gone from 2.5 million units sold to over 5 million units lifetime with the sequel. Splatoon 3 will have the benefit of far more time in the oven, and will be boosted immensely by the fact it's not launching at the start of the Switch life but rather during it's software peak with hardware sales which would be approaching 25 million. Along with the other huge titles or expansions coming next year, I think that even in a worse case scenario Switch won't fall below 5 million units of hardware - in fact I actually expect there to be a minimum drop YoY.
The other main contributing factor is Japanese third party support, just in 2021 third parties are going to sell more physical software than the previous 4 years; their support has finally arrived and this will make the Switch the first Nintendo device since 1994 to get the lion-share of third party software sales in Japan. When the PS5 is struggling to even get a 100K seller, the transition to Switch launch exclusivity for some franchises will be very swift as we've already seen with Baseball Spirits and the latest Musou Koei Tecmo is working on. This is a factor that constantly gets overlooked but the unprecedented shift in the market for third parties will provide Switch additional momentum until the successor comes out as there is virtually no where else to launch your games on in Japan - PS5 is a non-factor, XS is an even worse position than the PS5 and PC is a very small niche - leaving Nintendo and a super competitive mobile environment
