The Road to 160m+ for Nintendo Switch

[RolStoppable]

eldanielfire said:

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. 

The thing is that doubters have been wrong every year, not just in the early years. And every year I reiterated why they will be wrong, and every following year people would nod their heads that Switch momentum remained strong for exactly the reasons I had listed. The reasons in question have a strong track record, the same reasons still persist, therefore the doubters will be wrong again.

You run the maths to arrive at your conclusion that 10m extra isn't so sure after March 2025, but you aren't honest about it. You start by acknowledging that up to 154m is possible by March 2025, then you say a drop of 40-60% is rational and then use the low end instead of the full range for your figure by March 2026. It's only because of this that you are able to cap Switch at 160m with "a total of 3m after that." But even that is not enough for you, because you follow it up by naming reasons that it could be even worse than that.

Switch hit 141.32m by March 2024. 151.0m by March 2025 really constitutes the low end because that would mean under 10.0m shipped this fiscal year and everything has to go wrong for this to happen. 154.0m by March 2025 assumes almost everything goes well, but Nintendo still falls short of their 13.5m goal by 0.82m. Since the range of 151-154m is so broad, I'd say pretty much everyone would agree that Switch will land within said range by March 2025, so I too accept your basis. Now I'll do a table based on your 40-60% drop rate and simplify the end of life sales to your suggested 3m regardless of the momentum that Switch would have in any scenario.

If Switch hits ... by March 2025	drops 60%	drops 50%	drops 40%	Estimated range for lifetime sales
151.32m	155.32m	156.32m	157.32m	158.32-160.32m
152.32m	156.72m	157.82m	158.96m	159.72-161.96m
153.32m	158.12m	159.32m	160.52m	161.12-163.52m
154.32m	159.52m	160.82m	162.12m	162.52-165.12m

The assumption that Switch will sell at most 3m beyond March 2026 puts a serious limit to lifetime sales in any scenario, but even then exactly half of the above paths (6 out of 12) put Switch above the PS2 in the end.

I find your concern about the potential lack of a price cut to be rather meaningless in the current climate, because the same thing applies to the PS5, the Xbox Series and Switch's successor as well. Because what has the price cut for a last gen system always been about? A clear differentiation in cost to newer systems. So why would it matter if Switch doesn't get a price cut when all newer systems won't go down in price either. Different circumstances to previous generations, yet the result remains the same: Switch will have a clear price advantage over newer systems in its late life.