The Road to 160m+ for Nintendo Switch

[RolStoppable]

Norion said:

Would 152.3m by the end of this fiscal year really be fully on track? Based on what the DS shipped after the 3DS came out it could end up being extremely close with it just barely making it or slightly falling short if that is where it's at by then. If it's post successor shipments are more like the 3DS then that would for sure be enough though the lack of backwards compatibility and the unique hardware differences letting it continue being its own thing instead of just being a cheaper option probably helped the 3DS in that regard.

If you base it on the DS, then you have to expect the same timeline the 3DS went through during its launch year. The 3DS tremendously underperformed which forced Nintendo to issue a major price cut that was so severe that it sandwiched the 3DS at $170 between the DSi at $150 and the DSi XL at $180. With this kind of setup it's no wonder that the backwards compatible 3DS cut into DS sales in a significant way.

We don't know what Switch's successor price will be nor its year 1 lineup, plus we lack reasons to assume that it could be as bad as the 3DS following the DS. In the event of lack of knowledge, I refrain from assuming the worst and the best case scenarios as the likeliest ones. So if we default to the middle, yes, 11m this fiscal year are good enough to push Switch past 160m.

CheddarPlease said:

RolStoppable said:

There has to be a revision coming, otherwise Nintendo's forecast makes no sense.

I doubt it given that they just announced a Zelda Switch Lite SKU for September, which if they were planning a new revision they would reveal it as the Zelda edition SKU just like how the Switch OLED was themed after Metroid Dread. Additionally every previous Switch revision has been accompanied by rumors and hints for a few months in advance, which has not been the case so far. My guess is that they will probably just resort to heavy bundling and discounts as soon as September, probably alongside a Switch 2 reveal announcement.

Nintendo tends to tie games to SKUs that make sense. Metroid Dread was pitched as a home console-scale game, so it launched alongside a new premium SKU. On the other hand, Echoes of Wisdom screams handheld with its continuation of the artstyle that was used in the remake of a Game Boy Zelda game. This special Switch Lite SKU is not at odds with a revision coming.

The Switch Lite in 2019 was announced out of the blue with no rumors accompanying it beforehand; it happened in July 2019, only two months before its launch. And while there wild rumors and speculation about a new Switch SKU in 2021, the OLED was absolutely not what was fantasized about. So neither previous event supports your argument here. If there's a new revision coming in September or October like I expect, then its announcement will happen in either July or August.

zorg1000 said:

What kind of revision are you expecting?

We are late in the lifecycle of Switch, so I don't expect another premium SKU, but rather the opposite. Especially because of the reluctance to cut the price of the hardware.

Since there's already a handheld-only SKU that can't switch like a Switch, I don't see a problem with launching a home console-only SKU at this stage. The Lite didn't threaten the value of a hybrid (it was consistently the worst-selling SKU), so a TV-only unit isn't going to threaten it either, not now or going forward when the time has come for Switch 2. No screen, battery and built-in control inputs save costs, so bundling this SKU with either a pair of Joy-Cons or a Pro Controller should make it possible to sell it at the same price as the Lite.

Bofferbrauer2 said:

Instead of a revision, I expect a small price cut starting the holidays.

A revision would mean that a new production model would need to sit on the production lines, thus lowering the possible production numbers of it's successor at launch.

Even with just a small price cut, Nintendo could achieve quite a bit of sales considering that the console is still sold at or near launch price around the world. Having the lite at ~$179, the base model at $249 and the OLED at $299 would go a long way to achieve the fiscal year sales they projected.

If the number of production lines is a concern, then just one of the existing models (namely the original hybrid) needs to be phased out.