Glad these threads are getting revived given how since April 2nd we've been seeing revisionist perspectives about how the original Switch didn't have the same negative response as we are seeing with Switch 2 surrounding pricing, value, etc.
Having said that, I don't think anybody could have predicted it would be as successful as it was. A safe guess would've been 3DS + Wii U. Something like 80-100 million sales at the time.
There were a lot of assumptions that no longer hold.
1. The idea that Nintendo drops support for their platforms after 5 years. If anything, the Switch 2 has been overdue. They learned their lesson with Wii -> Wii U and DS -> 3DS. My coworkers in 2021 were itching for a Switch 2 when the OLED was announced. 2000's/early 2010'a Nintendo might've released one then.
2. The idea that Nintendo's core base was saturated and they could no longer appeal to those outside of it. Switch appealed to adult gaming enthusiasts by successfully achieving what the Vita promised, home consoles experiences on the go.
3. The idea that Nintendo staved off its inevitable decline with the casual wave of the Wii/DS and now that the fad burst they are back on-track for decline.
Really, what I think we should take from this is that many of our assumptions about what Nintendo was as a company were based on a recency bias at the time. Companies can evolve their strategy and tactics as the market and technology that fuels it changes.
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