The Road to 160m+ for Nintendo Switch

[Shtinamin_]

The_Liquid_Laser said:

We are in agreement that Switch will sell over 160M.  Not all of those systems you're describing above had sales "fall off a cliff" though.  The ones where that actually applies are the DS and PS4.  You are saying the DS went from 30M to 2.8M in 2 years and the PS4 went from 20.02m to 2.52m in 2 years.  That does describe sales falling off a cliff.

Most systems don't have tail end sales like that though.  For example, in the FY ending March 1994 the SNES did have sales of 11.06M and the following FY sales plummeted to 4.41M, a 60% drop.  But the next FY sales were 5.78M (+31%) and then 3.3M (-43%).  The net effect of this is that for 3 years, sales were fairly stable in the 5.78M to 3.3M range.  Sales did not continue to plummet.  Likewise the 3DS had sales like this for it's last several fiscal years: 8.74M (in 2015), 6.79M, 7.27M, 6.41M, 2.56M, 0.69M (in 2020).  These sales numbers are not near sales in the 3DS's peak year of 13.96M, but the sales numbers are fairly stable with an overall mild downward trend.  

This is more what we should be expecting from the Switch.  I do not expect sales in 2025 to only be around 10% of what they are this year.  I expect a more gradual downward trend (and I think you do too).  The most likely scenario is Switch will pass the 160M mark, but some people still see this as far fetched.

I think a cliff drop is anything near a -50% YoY.
And yes the SNES did do that, it dropped and stabilized at the lower "elevation". 3DS peaked really early and and was a "slide" rather than a cliff. though we could say it had a cliff in its 9th year (2.7M to 0.76M). Are these big cliffs, no. DS was the biggest cliff and is crazy how quickly it falls.
Not all consoles have a cliff, but a majority do. Hopefully the Switch never sells -50% YoY.

If the Switch sales -50% YoY, we should get a better understanding on how much the Switch will be able to sell in its life cycle.