Which System Will Ship More Units in Calendar Year 2025 Worldwide: Switch 2 or PS5?

[Shadow1980]

The PS5 has a whole year to sell units while the Switch 2 only has seven months. The PS5 shipped 20.2M units last year. While it will definitely decline this year, I think it'll do well enough to have one last year as the #1 system worldwide. If the decline is comparable to the PS4's decline in 2018, it might do only 18M this year. Meanwhile, Nintendo shipped less than 15M units of the Switch 1 over ten months in 2017. With basically one less quarter to work with, Nintendo might at best just manage to ship what the Switch 1 did if they really upped production and the system does really, really well, like way better than the Switch 1.

So, I'd probably give the Switch 2 a one-in-five chance of being the year's #1 system. Once we start getting actual data, though, I am willing to revise my stance. It is possible that the match-up could end up looking less than PS4 vs. NS1 2017 and more like PS4 vs. NS1 2018, which was really, really close (the PS4 won by only 300k globally). Perhaps the Switch 2 really could end up far outpacing the Switch 1, and/or the PS5 might have an unusually large year-over-year decline.

2026 onward? The Switch 2 takes the top spot for the next several years, hands down. The Switch 1 was the top system every year from 2019 to 2022, and I expect a similar streak from the Switch 2. Having a life cycle offset from that of PS & Xbox really helps in that regard, because the Switch 2 will be having its best years when the PS5 is on the way out and the PS6 is still just the new kid.