April Circana (NPD) 2024 Thread + Predictions

[XtremeBG]

Norion said:

The first quarter being down massively is obviously a big deal since that means they'll have to make it up elsewhere to keep the overall decline small and with this year having nothing on the level of the Mario film and TOTK and the Switch 2 not being that far off indicates that every quarter should be down significantly with the only potential exception being Q4 since that one was relatively low last time. Though the Switch 2 will be fully known about by then which will work against this Q4. 

The only way Nintendo can potentially make it is with a big price cut, not just a standard one but cutting it by like a full 100 since a regular one would only have so much impact this late in its life and I highly doubt they'll do that. I brought up the goal since things are already looking bad for it and saying that a full 25% of the year being down massively won't have that much affect on the overall goal is ridiculous due to what I said in the last paragraph. There's nothing wrong with speculating over whether it'll make it this early since the circumstances of this fiscal year are already fairly well known and it's an interesting topic to think about.

I absolutely agree with you. The more notable drops of the Switch started after the summer last year, and are still here. Yes there were some months as december or january that were a little bit outliers with more steady drops, but outside of those generally Switch was between 20 and 40% drops, with peaking this month by a whopping 50% drop worlwide YOY. Yes you heard right. Also weekly numbers dropped in the last quarter of the last year to range between 180 and 200k just before the holiday boost (from 200 to 250k in the first 8/9 months of the year) to 150 - 180k weekly range in the weeks till April, and dropped once again to a range of 130k to 160K for the month of April. You heard right! The very last week of April Switch made only 130k for the week. This is very big drop. Even I with not so optimistic projections as some people here, expected the drop to 130k at least in the second half of this year. This is big. Switch hadn't had so weak week since 2017, and even then there were only a few weeks around that number. Maybe the drop in number in the range 100 - 130k will come sooner than I expected. And yes, as @Phenomajp13 said, this is only 1 month, however I just wrote, the drops continue to be here, and in the past 9 months they have become bigger and bigger (if we exclude the holidays of course, well there were decent drops there as well for a holidays, but we are talking standart non holidays weeks here) and I honestly don't think the sales will go back to let's say 200k weekly unless Nintendo really steps up massively, and put some new big software titles (yes, titles, at least a few not only 1) and of course pricecut, as you @Norion said, 100$. At this point even delaying the Switch 2 won't save the sales so much. And this is not even a quarter I am explaining here, it's a period of 9 months, or 7 if you will without the holidays (although the drops for the holidays were there too, let's not forget November). I am only not sure about if the drops will continue, or Switch can hold on let's say till the end of the year, with weekly number in the 130-160k range, cuz if it can, that it is still good. This is still decent numbers for so old console, and the chances of 155-160M are maybe still there. But I really doubt that with showing week of 130K in as early as April, and weeks of 150-160K before that, that Switch can hold on to those level of sales for the rest of the year, as I said, unless they do at least 100$ price cut which will help definitely. With that pricecut I can see Switch even going back to the 180-200k sales range for some time. I still expect around 10M for the year though. But if the next 2-3 month show range of 100-130K I am not sure if it can reach that number.

Last edited by XtremeBG - on 29 May 2024