RolStoppable said:
The calculated range is 158.6m to 161.8m and there's no maths that could push it any higher. That's why 162.0m will constitute absolute certainty that Switch is the best-selling system of all time while 161.9m could still have people argue about rounding. The thing is that every year we've had people worrying about Switch hitting a certain threshold in lifetime sales. Even despite starting in a healthier position than the 3DS, it was still in doubt for a lot of people that Switch could sell more than 75 million units. Every year the bar had to be moved higher while the doubters tried their best to lay the bar as low as possible. In early 2020 we still had people questioning if 100m is possible. Then we went from 110m to 120m to 130m to 140m to 150m to now 160m. It was always a question of longevity, but rarely did it happen that people actually focused on Switch itself, and instead they tried to draw parallels with other systems and repurpose those analyses back to Switch. What Switch has going for it is first party support that is A+ and third party support that is B+. It's only B+ because megahits like Monster Hunter are extremely rare to be made, but the number of potential million sellers and overall number of quality additions to the library are very high. A steady flow of interesting content is what makes a system sell for a long time and there's still no end in sight for Switch, because we are still getting a new first party game almost every month and a sequel to Pokémon Legends is announced for 2025. Third parties aren't going to stop supporting Switch anytime soon anyway, because their own transitional periods from current gen to next gen keep getting longer with each generation. Switch is guaranteed to hit 150m before its successor launches. We also know that Switch's successor won't be cheap, so Switch will continue to sell alongside its successor for a couple of years. Perhaps with fewer first party titles that the 3DS got post-replacement, but for sure with more third party games. The 3DS entered its post-replacement phase on the back of a 7m fiscal year whereas Switch will have at least 11m in the same situation, so it's undeniable that Switch will go into its final phase of life with much better momentum. Adding 10m more after the fiscal year ending March 2025 isn't that big of a challenge under these circumstances, especially because it's possible that the successor won't even launch during the first half of calendar year 2025, which would allow Switch to hit 155m before getting replaced. Half a year ago I said in a different thread that Switch's chances to outsell the PS2 are at 90%. Nothing extraordinary has happened since then, so the odds remain the same. I acknowledge that there's still a realistic possibility for pessimistic scenarios to come true, but at the same time the likelihood for them to happen is very low. The requirement for Switch to fall short of the PS2 is pretty much a repeat of the DS to 3DS transition where the successor system was messed up and got its price quickly cut to shift sales from the old system to the new system. But such a collosal blunder is improbable because of how Nintendo is handling the Switch platform up till now: It's carefully and patiently planned as opposed to the DS to 3DS transition where Nintendo had rushed the successor to the market. |
I think it's a fallacy to claim because doubters of Switch sales were wrong in it's early years, that they are wrong now. There was no date that would indicate how well the Switch would do and the pandemic effect was fortunate. We can see the decline in sales of the Switch now and project, both optimistically or conservatively, what future sales will because well as an idea of what console selling games are left. We have historic data to show how consoles fare after a new release as well. Now we have a lot of hard evidence from sales date to estimate the Switch's likely final total.
From that 151-154 units sold by March 2025 looks most likely ballpark. We suspect the Switch will have a 3 year life left once the Successor is launched. We can ascertain that Nintendo won't do a Sony and knee cap production straight after and so a likely drop of 40-60% in sales is a rational prediction. That makes it potentially 156/157 units sold by March 2026 minimum. Then a total of 3 million more after that. But, corporate business means Nintendo won't push the Switch hard if they think it would bite in the Switch successor sales as well and thus we assume they won't knee cap the Switch. Rumours were the Switch successor was put back a year due to the current global climate. It's possible there is even less games Nintendo have in the bag to support the post-successor era now.
The fault in those estimates is that previous data of post success or sales has a price drop involved. Given recent console trends it seems the possibility of a price drop is more and more unlikely due to how supply chains of modern components work now. It's possible Nintendo might follow Sony and kneecap the Switch to support the successor. We'll see. The idea of a guaranteed 10 million extra isn't so sure in the current climate.
