The Road to 160m+ for Nintendo Switch

[XtremeBG]

Fight-the-Streets said:

As usual, you’re calculating based on sell-through numbers, which is completely fine (and, as you've noted before, VGChartz focuses on sell-through data for console sales). My issue, however, is that by using calendar years instead of fiscal years (which end in March), you're effectively shortchanging the Switch by about half a year to three quarters. According to your calculation, 5 million units will sell through in calendar year 2025, and 4 million in calendar year 2026 (including sales up to the end of production but excluding Japan after 2026).

In my opinion, this creates a skewed picture because the sales decline you’re referencing doesn’t align with the drop-off in shipped units calculated by fiscal year. Specifically, the “2025 decline effect” in FY 2026 doesn’t begin until April 2025 (rather than January 2025 as in the calendar year), and the “2026 decline effect” in FY 2027 doesn’t begin until April 2026 (instead of January 2026 as in the calendar year). Additionally, there will almost certainly still be units sold in both calendar year 2027 and fiscal year 2028 (which ends on March 31, 2028), and potentially beyond that.

If all of this is too confusing, here’s the simple version: Yes, I believe your numbers may be a bit too pessimistic. But that’s okay—we’ll see how it plays out.

I am calculating it that way, because it's simpler and easier for me. You can calculate it with fiscal years if you want.

Also according to my calculations, yes next year is about 5M but the year after that - 2026 is not 4 million. I wrote for US, Europe and rest of the world that after 2025 the 1M I gave each is till end of life, so 2026 + the years after this. And yes I don't think it will stop selling after 2026. It will just sell less. The only number I gave for 2026 was for Japan - 1M. I agree it will sell in 2027 and even maybe 2028. It will sell around 2-2.5M after all in 2026, there is no point in discontinuing it after a year of 2M or more.

Seeing the drops it had this year from the last 2 years, it's not pessimistic it's realistic. Will Switch do more ? It's not impossible. But that does not change the fact given the circumstances it's realistic one. Either way, this wasn't the point of my post, it was about the 160M figure. And if it isn't for at least 3.5M more, it isn't getting there.

Last edited by XtremeBG - on 10 November 2024