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curl-6 on 24 October 2021
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The_Liquid_Laser said:
trunkswd said:

Link to the article here.

Switch vs DS Sales Comparison - September 2021

This monthly series compares the aligned worldwide sales of the Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo DS.

The DS launched in November 2004 in North America, December 2004 in Japan, and March 2005 in Europe, while the Nintendo Switch launched worldwide in March 2017. Therefore, the holiday periods for the two consoles do not lineup, which is why there are big increases and decreases.

Switch Vs. DS Global:

Gap change in latest month: 137,117 - DS

Gap change over last 12 months: 3,103,906 - DS

Total Lead: 10,509,890 - DS

Switch Total Sales: 91,586,736

DS Total Sales: 102,096,626

September 2021 is the 55th month that the Nintendo Switch has been available for. During the latest month, the gap grew in favor of the DS by 137,117 units when compared to the Switch during the same timeframe. In the last 12 months, the DS has outsold the Switch by 3.10 million units. The DS is ahead of the Switch by 10.51 million units.

The 55th month on sale for the Nintendo Switch is September 2021, while for the DS it is May 2009. The Switch has sold 91.59 million units, while the DS sold 102.10 million units during the same timeframe.

The Nintendo DS sold 154.02 million units lifetime. The Nintendo Switch is currently 62.43 million units behind the lifetime sales of the DS.

This is the contest that I find the most interesting.  Right now it looks like the DS is ahead by 10.5m units, but Switch is about to get it's holiday season.  After that it will be pretty close.  Also DS really only has about one more good year in it.  The Switch just needs to keep up and it will pass it fairly easily in a year or two.  Given how strong Switch sales are in spite of its age, I think it's very likely it will outleg the DS.

Granted DS did drop off very quickly after the release of the 3DS, but Switch still has to sell more than 60 million more units from here on out to overtake it lifetime.

I can see an outside chance of that happening, if there is no Switch successor until 2024 or later, and they manage to keep up a steady stream of strong software support as well as price cuts until then, but it seems more likely to me that Nintendo will choose to keep profit margins high, that software will slow once their core teams move on to making games for its successor, or that said successor arrives before 2024, or some combination therein.