Will Switch 2 outsell the Nintendo King?

[RolStoppable]

CheddarPlease said:

Still waiting for someone to make a surprisingly well-informed post about how Switch 2 could be Nintendo's PS2 moment, any takers lol?

Sure, no problem.

One prevailing sentiment is that Switch is a novelty product whose sales benefited from this bonus, so its successor is bound to have lower sales. But what is Switch's novelty? It is that it works well as both a home console and a handheld console, two things that are absolutely not a novelty because the former dates back to the 1970s while the latter was established with the Game Boy in 1989. So if you think that's a novelty, then you are basically betting against the entire history of video game consoles.

The parallel between PS1 to PS2 and Switch to Switch 2 is the initial big question of third party support. The PS1 started slow and it was only by late 1996 (almost two years after launch) that the floodgates had really opened and removed all doubts; on the other hand, the PS2 could count on full support from day 1. It took Switch 1 until early 2019 before things started in earnest to roll for third party support, with it becoming common practice for Japanese publishers to have day and date launches. Now for Switch 2 we have rumors flying around that various AAA third party content is planned to release during year 1; late ports, but more substantial than what was in Switch 1's pipeline during the comparable timeframe. Additionally, Japanese support is going to continue uninterrupted because the market situation in Japan is trending towards an almost Nintendo monopoly with no signs of anything changing this trend.

If we then consider the major change in the global video game market with Microsoft being on the verge of either bowing out or becoming a niche player for third party sales, then it becomes more and more likely that at least a few of the Western publishers will follow in the footsteps of Japanese publishers and treat the Nintendo platform much better than they used to do. We cannot and should not expect these games to challenge the sales levels they achieve on PlayStation, but the mere fact that more of them will be on Nintendo on a regular basis is already a stark contrast to how things were for Switch 1.

Nintendo's competition today is weaker than it was eight years ago. While this doesn't mean that Nintendo will be able to make use of this opportunity, it's undeniable that the opportunity to top the sales of Switch 1 exists in a realistic manner and not just a highly theoretically one. Right now we not only have Microsoft throwing in the towel, but are also at the beginning of gamers souring on Sony due to their blown GaaS strategy that will result in a trickle of exciting first party content for the next few years. Almost everything is lining up positively for Nintendo at the moment; one major exception are Trump's tariff plans that could harm the US market as a whole for a few years.