By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
curl-6 on 31 October 2021
Edit Thread
tbone51 said:
curl-6 said:

While 2022's already great lineup will definitely ease the slope, I don't see any way next year will come close to 2020 or 2021 in terms of hardware sales when the Switch will be 5+ years old, and over 100 million people will already have one. (23 million in Japan, which is around 1/5th of the total population)

It's only natural that an older and popular system will eventually start to see both market saturation and diminishing returns in terms of hardware boosts from major software.

Don't get me wrong, Switch will probably have one of the best selling 6th years of any system in history, but it can't go up and up forever. Even the most popular platforms slow down eventually.

Depending on what you mean on the decline but saturation might not come into play in 2022. Reasons being looking at 3DS year 5-7, excluding OLED sales, NSW is matching 3ds year5+6 combine currently despite being 2mil+ ahead launch aligned.

Now for OLED, it’s a model where the first 10mil consumers or so want an upgrade from their 2017/2018 purchase (or even 2019/2020). The only relevant system currently in japan are both the NSW and the ps5. No explanation on ps5, NSW is the system that is getting all the attention due to software/etc. combine this with people wanting to buy a new product on the hardware side and it’s obvious OLED is just that.

like 2020/2021, people are underestimating NSW and the circumstances that is current day japan. Population don’t mean much. Pokémon RG sold 8.22mil and that was said to never be repeated yet we have ACNH with 9.5mil on a 21mil installbase with it possibly reaching 12mil lifetime for example

There comes a point though where most of the people who would buy one already have one. DS and 3DS saw multiple refreshes that had existing buyers replacing their old systems, but even they eventually slowed. Switch cannot go on growing eternally.

I'm not talking about a cliff, but an eventual decline is a factual inevitability, and I just can't see 2022 selling on par with 2020 and 2021 given the age and install base Switch will have by then.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 31 October 2021