super_etecoon said:
Jumpin said:
Still too uncertain to say anything at this time. All we’ve seen is a brief teaser that said almost nothing except “no more joycon disconnections during handheld mode†and Mario Kart.
Consoles sell based on system sellers. “System sellers†are basically groups of games that will sell consoles. Then there are the rare ones known as killer apps, these are games or features that sell hardware on their own in exceedingly huge numbers (what’s the line? Probably at least 10 million) - these are your Wii Sports, Breath of the Wilds, GTA trilogy, Super Mario Bros, Pokémons (Pokémen?), and even non-gaming applications like DVD playback. And the top selling consoles all have two or more of these - the Switch had 3 (Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8DX, and Animal Crossing NH which likely all sold 10 million+ Switches apiece on their own in- and that’s on top of numerous system sellers like Tears of the Kingdom, Mario Odyssey, and more… some system sellers aren’t necessarily big sellers, but they cover a specific niche that a certain subset of players really want. Arguably, the Switch’s ability to go between home console mode and handheld could be a fourth killer app feature.
Before making any calls, I’d like to know what games and features are coming to Switch 2, and what could be a potential killer app. Because Switch 2 won’t get far without system sellers or killer apps, and after consoles like Wii U and Gamecube which had no killer apps, and very little on the system sellers aren’t necessarily front, we’ve seen the proof that Nintendo is not beyond failure. That said, with such a conservative generation, I think a 3DS decline is looking like the worst case scenario at this point, best case scenario is that it hits with greater support than Switch 1, multiple killer apps with virality with few parallels (similar to or exceeding something like Breath of the Wild, Pokémon, or Minecraft).
When we know those answers, things will become more clear. |
We’re all playing the same game here with the same set of rules. Obviously more info is needed to make a truly educated guess. Care to just offer a baseline? Like if everything else they do other than call it Switch 2 and release a Mario Kart title is terrible and nothing hits (this is wildly unlikely), what will the Switch 2 sell? |
I could, but it wouldn’t be my honest opinion. Unless something like “anything between about 30 million and 330 million” is a legitimate answer. I don’t have any kind of a “gut feeling” here on this one the way I did with the Wii and Switch - because I saw those and almost desperately wanted them. I give it 30 million on the low end with a few assumptions: first, that probably around 20-50% will happily upgrade based solely on just continuing with the platform they’ve invested in. And on the high end, that a large number of people who may have played Switch as a family console or the console of a friend or roommate, now has the opportunity to get a new and up to date one of their own. Of course, these numbers are arbitrary with limited education in the estimation at best. But I’m reasonably confident the Switch will fall within that 30-330 million range.
I’m not trying to be difficult out of any kind of spite or disdain for the question… this is more caution resulting from 20 years of work involving projections and metadata analytics where when I get something wrong, I’m sat in a boardroom with a bunch of stakeholders debating how the projections were so wrong as an indirect way of debating my competence. Nothing more than good old fashioned mental trauma. :)
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