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jonathanalis on 06 February 2022
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Agente42 said:
jonathanalis said:

Everyone considered the wii sales drop to be too harsh. In my mind, if switch drops like wii, it couldnt manage to get to 140M.

So, I was navigating in the yearly hardware comparison chart (https://www.vgchartz.com/tools/hw_date.php?reg=Global&ending=Yearly)

I noticed Wii sales peak year (2008) was slightly behind switch's 2021, but I rounded to million floor for easier math, so I consider them the same. 

And I did the math for Wii sales rounded down: +21M (2009), +17M (2010), +11M (2011) + 5M (2012) + 2M (2013) + 4M (rest+leftovers)=60M.

If switch keep this sales trajectory as wii 2009 was switch 2021, it will end above 160M.

It still manage to became the best selling console ever, according to this analyzis.

Then I made another analyzis, considering aligned peak years:

Switch peak year (2020) sold 1.175 higher than wii's (2008).

And this ratio predicted surprising well the 2021 switch: 21.05M (2009 wii) *1.175 = 24.7M, really close to 24.8M from 2021 switch.

So, I kept this ratio for upcoming years for switch yearly sales.

I got to around 47M more sales for switch, starting from 2022.

So, Around 150M.

Anyway, Wii didnt drop as hard as I had in my mind.

Disclaimer: Yeah, Switch will probably follow a different drop curve than wii's, it is just a thought experiment.

On market analysis,  a good analysis needs context. Macro and micro. Why switch will fall a cliff? Wii did because of lack of games and deviation of production of the style of games.

Lack of games - Nintendo locks the big RPGs launch of Switch - Pandora Tower, The Last Story, Xenoblade in Japan. Lock other Japanese games ( the giant killer game, disaster, etc). All this game may help momentum, but stay only on Japan or have a late minor launch. 

Deviation of the style of games-  Nintendo launched games more for the niche Nintendo crowd and abandoned arcade games for expandable consumers. Metroid Other M and Skyward Sword are good examples of this, Nintendo tries to turn the expandable market into Nintendo core consumers, but some expandable consumers as former gamers and these former gamers go out of Nintendo because of these products back then in N64 and Gamecube. 

Four pipelines of production - Nintendo has four consoles and these four pipelines make the launch of games of Wii suffers. 

The peak of HD television - Minor effect, but in 2012 - 2013, the HD have consolidation in all major markets.

Microsoft and Sony adjusted HD production, fix the stationary console problems, and have all major third support.

Whats the context of this downfall of Switch? 

Giving the context was never my point.

Is just like: lets suppose for an absurdity, switch ends up dropping its sales curve like wii's. Then these would be the numbers.

In reality, there is no reason to expect switch will drop like wii. I cant imagine a context where this happen. So, this prediction serves as a lower bound for switch sales.