The Road to 160m+ for Nintendo Switch

[RolStoppable]

The thread's title refers to the number that Switch has to achieve to become the best-selling console of all time. Sony's corporate website may have listed "more than 155.0m" for the PS2 at the time of this thread's creation, but it was known that this wasn't the final lifetime number, so about the midway point of the estimated range was taken because it also happens to be a round number. Sony issuing an update to their website doesn't change anything for this thread, because since its inception it was assumed that the final PS2 lifetime figure is at around 160m units.

Was Sony's motivation for this update that Switch was closing in on 155m units and certain to beat it? Of course it was. But at the same time this doesn't mean that Sony will raise the figure another time when Switch is closing in on 160m and that's for the simple reason that Sony didn't ship more PS2 units. In other words, any hypotheticals that Sony could potentially raise the number to 165m are incredibly stupid and the people making such suggestions should be ashamed of themselves.

As for Switch's sales trajectory, it's looking like the holiday quarter can achieve at least 5.5m units, bringing calendar year shipments to just above 12m and the LTD figure to 151.5m. Even a strong year over year decline of 50% would still result in 6m and 157.5m LTD by the end of 2025. Assuming a 70% decline in the following year gives us 1.8m and 159.3m by the end of 2026. In this scenario it would come down to the wire, but...

...I see no good reason why Switch's decline should be so steep in a market environment where Switch 2 costs $400+, the PS5 Digital Edition $400+ and Xbox has hardly any relevance anymore. Switch Lite and the original Switch with a bundled game will be the only low-cost options in the market and that's going to hold true for at least 2025 and 2026. Nintendo will release a bunch of low tier first party software plus a new Pokémon Legends while third parties will bank on cross-gen support for Switch and Switch 2 for a while, so Switch is far from dead. And as you can see from the above numbers, it really doesn't take much for Switch to get comfortably past 160m and hit 162m minimum.

I won't worry about this being a close race until we have facts that support it being one, hence why I don't participate much in here for most of the year.