The Road to 160m+ for Nintendo Switch

[Shtinamin_]

Norion said:

Shtinamin_ said:

No, how do you take hypotheticals too seriously?
burninmylight has a point. So how are you gonna explain "why having an earlier launch would have increased the availability of stock."

We can be reasonable people and have conversations even interesting conversations like this, and why can't we see how far the iceberg goes? (rhetorical) If it gets personal, we should ere on the side of caution.

I'm curious about that question regarding earlier launch.

By going into the realism of it when that is irrelevant to the point. I don't have to explain that since I'm not arguing that they should've launched it in late 2016 with the circumstances they had, just that it would've been better if they had different circumstances back then making it feasible for Nintendo to launch it then.

I understand that. You most likely know that situation Nintendo was in during the WiiU era. They had little-to-no 3rd party backing, and every game that was released was selling around 5M units. The best selling is Mario Kart 8 at 8.46M. Nintendo already had the specs and prototype for the Switch set up and knew they needed to get it out fast, and early (They knew that they wouldn't be able to "survive" another 3 years, hence why the Switch launch "mid-cycle"). They didn't have enough Switch stock in the first couple of months, and that is probably the decent point that can be addressed. They had made the Nvidia chip deal back in Jul 27, 2016. Personally, I dont know how long it takes to manufacture a Switch or a couple million so I can make assumptions (Nintendo thinks they can ship 1.76 million units from Jan 1 to Mar 31). Now Nintendo Switch is in the latter years so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say they can manufacture about 2-3x that amount in 3 mounts. So if they were to launch it in Nov 2016, they would have ~3 months to manufacture, ship, and ensure quality, and quantity of their games (Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild). I can assume they would have ~5M units for the holidays available for launch. 

The other point that is the more likely reason, for Mar launch, were the games. Was Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild ready to be released in Nov 2016? My only assumption is no, because they went for a Mar release when a significant portion of consoles from Nintendo has released near the holiday season in the past (there have been many Spring releases, and Summer releases as well).

If their circumstances were more in favor of Nintendo having a Nov 2016 release, I think Nintendo could have been able to sell more, around 6M more units. But if it would've launched in Nov 2016, would they Switch have caught on so fast, and be as beloved as it is, the pandemic boosted it so much, would it have not been relevant in 2020? idk. It is something to consider, what circumstances are you considering?