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Zippy6 on 25 October 2021
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The_Liquid_Laser said:
Zippy6 said:

Switch is 1.24m down YoY as of October 9th and all indications are the gap is going to immediately start widening again after OLED launch week. We already know Japan is 23k down YoY for OLED's 2nd week, and 2020 continued to post 500k+ weeks all the way up to Black Friday.

To sell 29m+ Switch is going to have to sell 11.5m-12m in November and December alone. That would be the best Nov+Dec any console has ever had.

To say 29.66m+ to beat DS's record is likely is... very very optimistic.

Based on your post, it sounds like most people are doing a week by week tally of projected future sales, while I am doing a proportion based on previous years.

"To sell 29m+ Switch is going to have to sell 11.5m-12m in November and December alone. That would be the best Nov+Dec any console has ever had."
If Switch is going to have the best year ever, then it isn't unrealistic to say that it will have the best Nov + Dec ever.  Those are the two most important months out of the year.  Your argument is basically, "If Switch were going to break a record, then it would have to break a record."  This is circular reasoning.

Sure it is similar to saying "if it's going to break a record it would have to break a record." The point is I don't see where you are getting any indication that Switch is suddenly going to jump from being 7.5% down for the year and suddenly be up 30% for the whole of Nov+Dec to beat that "likely" 29.66m.

 Here are the record Nov+Dec sales:

DS 2008 - ~11.6m
DS 2007 - ~10.5m
Switch 2019 - 9.85m
Wii 2008 - ~9m
Switch 2020 - 8.68m
PS4 2016 - 8.16m
360 2011 - 6.64m
3DS - 6.60m

Switch is currently down 1.24m, as indicated by Japans next week sales this gap is likely widening again. But even if we are generous and say the gap remains 1.24m at the end of October that would still mean sales for the year would be about 18.3m, meaning 11.36m sales needed from the last 2 months, an increase from 2020 of 30.8%, and that's being generous as we already know the next weeks data is down YoY in Japan.

The_Liquid_Laser said:

The real question is, "Is Switch going to break a record?"  Last year it came extremely close, and the main thing that held it back is that Switch had a very disappointing holiday as compared to the rest of its sales that year.  With a new hardware model and a Pokemon game releasing this year, it is very likely to outsell 2020's holiday period by a good margin.

This is the main problem. Switch did not have a poor holiday last year, it had a great holiday. "Disappointing holiday as compared to the rest of its sales that year" is true in terms of how much sales came from the holiday compared to the rest of the year in 2020. However this is due to the covid pandemic changing buying patterns, and your assumption that this year will be vastly different and suddenly 2021 will be very loaded towards the holiday for Nintendo is not an idea that I share.

So basically I think your idea that the we're going to see a similar holiday boost as years prior to 2020 isn't a correct one and final sales will be closer to your 2020 projection than your 2017-2019 projections in the OP.

I can see the Switch having a stronger holiday in 2021 than 2020, and I don't think it's impossible it does in fact beat 2020 overall, but best year ever for a console is fantasy in my eyes.