Will Switch outsell DS? PS2? Or Neither? (March 2024 Update Poll)

[Shtinamin_]

CheddarPlease said:

@Phenomajp13 @Shtinamin_ I plan on making an update after this quarter's results are in, given the holiday sales are arguably the most impactful.

US sales fell quite a bit under my predictions, contributing to poor FY25 Q1 sales, but Europe sales remained stronger than I anticipated. On the other hand, I am quite happy to have gotten Japanese sales for the year right on the dot. FY24 Q4 shipments were lower than expected due to an overshipment from the previous holiday quarter, but the lack of an announcement in 2024 helped to ensure strong Q3 and Q4 sales despite the lack of any significant price drops or bundles outside the month of November. While I did successfully predict that MP4 would be announced in the June Direct, it's release date was further away than I expected, though this was made up for by a new 2D Zelda and Mario Party taking its place in the holiday lineup.

Overall, Nintendo's strategy in 2024 was less aggressive than I anticipated, but this was ultimately compensated for by a strong holiday season as a result of their conservative approach to revealing its successor. At this point, it is probably more likely that the OLED model will be the first to be discontinued given rumors about the Switch 2 reverting to an LCD panel. My prediction for 2025 remains the same, around 6-7m for this fiscal year, effectively what the non-OLED models managed this year. Assuming holiday shipments come in as strong as sales figures have suggested, the path for the Switch to become the best-selling console of all time remains wide open. 

I appreciate your update. Though I don’t understand why an LCD Switch 2 would cause the discontinuation of the most successful iteration for the past 2 years.

I’d like to go over my predictions I had and how it compared to reality.

Prediction:

-Q1: 3.4M Shipped, 144.72M

-Q2: Constant Nintendo IP releases, 2.7M Shipped, 147.42M

-Q3: Bundles, Price drops, increased game releases, last solo holiday, 5.6M Shipped, 153.02M

-Q4: Successor Announced with 4/3/25 launch date, Legends Z-A launches, New FY goal of 25M, 1.8M Shipped, 154.82M

Reality:

-Q1: 2.1 Shipped 143.42. Overcalculated Shipped by 1.2M and total by 1.3M

-Q2: Released Nintendo World Champions NES, Emio Famicom Detective, Legend of Zelda:EoW. It was constant with 1 per month. 2.62M Shipped 146.02M. Overcalculated Shipped by 0.08M (actually really good), and total by 1.4M.

-Q3: Several Bundles, No price drops, more releases than Q1 but less than Q2 (just barely) and same amount of IP released as Q2 and Q1, last solo holiday confirmed. With the data we have as of Jan 23 (before Europe info), 3.86M Shipped, 149.90M. Overcalculated Shipped by 1.74M, and total by 3.12M (still waiting on Europe numbers but looks like I’ll be off by almost Q1 shipped).

-Q4: Successor Announced in January with a Direct on 4/2/25. One day off and it’s a direct (many thought it was a launch date lol). There rest will be found out later.

I think I did fairly well. My Q1 and Q3 were a bit bad though.