The Road to 160m+ for Nintendo Switch (EDIT: See mod note in first post for new rule).

[abronn627]

So they maintain their forecast for March 26, so they expect the Switch to be in the 4M of the 160. I do believe they can do it, but we'll have a better idea once we know what they forecast for FY27, which I doubt would be the final year of production.

Here's my thought and it comes from my retailer and buyer experience for retail chain ( long post):

-What is interesting to look at is not the % drop from one year to another, but from quarter to quarter. And since the SW2 launch, the Switch had two steady quarters in the 900k and one 1M+ in the holidays. Will it maintain that number? Probably not, but it shows some kind of stability and the Japanese weekly numbers are a good place to see this trend.

-From a retailer perspective, it shows that the product, while not as popular, is still selling at a steady pace and in a range that it's worth keeping in stock.

-From a buyer perspective, you have to consider the margin your making on what you're buying from the producer or distributor. An order is normally made of available units and units in production or to be produced. Nintendo could easily decide to produced 4M unit if they want, but that's a risk they can't take unless they have firm orders from a retailer, but orders work the same way as if you're buying in wholesale: the more you're willing to buy, the more you can negotiate the price to your advantage.

-Buyers in retails have to look at multiple factors before signing an order and it's always the same: how much will it cost, how much units can I stored in our distribution centers, how much inventory can we hold in our sales point and how much will it cost to replenish our point of sales.

This is were the Switch shines, just like the DS and 3DS: it's size and it's packaging.

The storage space it takes is way smaller than other consoles and by default, can be shipped in bigger figures for the same weight (which is how shipping cost or calculated). The Switch Lite in particular takes really little space in a warehouse or in the back-store of a GameStop or a Best Buy. 10 units of it could fit on a shelve, while you could only store one PS5 on it instead. Having 10 units in stock at all time on a square foot space in a back-store is something that are acceptable from a buyer perspective because of the little impact it has on the storage capacity of your stores (or even distribution center), even if said store is just selling one unit a week. It makes buying in bulk less expensive and less risky. If it was the early days of the Switch, they would have to be more prudent, but at this point in time, it's more about margins then potential sales.

It was definitely a factor for us with the PS2 Slim or why we held into ordering the Wii Mini at the end. It's cost effective, even if you sell the minimum of units on a weekly basis.

So my guess, with that in mind: the next FY forecast will be down around 2-2.5M and FY28 will be around 1.5-2M with the Oled being discontinued to keep only the Switch Lite available till the ends of production, which I guess will happens once they don't expect yearly orders to reach 1M unit or when they want to introduced the Switch 2 Lite.

But we'll see.