Nintendo quarterly sales update (To December 31st 2022) Switch 122.55 million

[anonymunchy]

Norion said:

anonymunchy said:

The ''around 20 million'' was for the past year, as it hits close to 19 million if I'm not mistaken.

That part of the comment was directed at a saturation comment, pointing out that saturation will not occur if support remains as high as it was in 2017. Saturation occurs when support for a console is finished, no longer anything new to entice new players, hence eventually everyone who wants one will have bought one, ignoring yearly population growth. New software will keep enticing new players. Spread out my list over 3 years and it comes down to about 1 big game every month, which is really not unrealistic for a console when fully supported. Besides the obvious wishful thinking with a lot of these titles, it's only unrealistic because we don't expect Nintendo to continue providing such massive support.

Your last comment is based on absolutely nothing though. Why on earth would investors not be happy if they don't release a new console in 2024? They only care about profit, so as long as Nintendo is making profit, they will be happy. Just because some content creators or the absolutely tiny online community are hunkering for a new more powerful console, doesn't mean the general public is. They are clearly showing interest in the current console, as Nintendo has also pointed out with a high engagement over the past months.

There's a limit to how many new players can be enticed though. The vast majority of people who'll ever buy a Switch have already bought one at this point so new software can only do so much to slow down the decline now. 

My last comment is based on things such as Nintendo's stock taking a hit recently due to them cutting their forecast due to lower than expected demand. The investors will obviously be unhappy if Nintendo lets hardware and software sales decline throughout all of 2024. Public interest in it is clearly in the decline phase now.

Selling another 40 million at this point would still mean that the majority has already purchased a Switch. I'm not saying it's going to keep selling 20 million every year, just that a decline doesn't have to be at a steady pace, hence my example of 3DS selling 7 million for 4 years, it didn't drop lower until the Switch was released. The Switch is in a much healthier position than the 3DS, so maybe it can sell 12 million for 4 years until a new console is released. I'm not saying it's going to, just that with proper game support, price changes and hardware iterations and not announcing a brand new console, it's possible.

Investors will be unhappy if Nintendo doesn't do anything, but why would releasing a brand new console be the only solution? The Switch just sold 19 million last year and software sales are basically flat, decline is very relative here. We've just been spoiled by the insane numbers it has been doing. People are acting as if sales dropped below 10 million and they better hurry getting out a new console or Nintendo will be irrelevant.