The Playstation was a sleeper hit. While in retrospect, a lot of people play off the "Devastating move to launch the console cheaper than Saturn as it stole Sega's thunder." That's not accurate. Even after that move, the Playstation was still almost invisible and irrelevant for another 1-2 years. Resident Evil is the first game I recall that was an eye opener.

Yes, the price of the Saturn killed it, but the launch price of the Playstation had NOTHING to do with Sega's downfall (again, because no one gave a crap about it). Basically, when the Playstation really began to take off, the N64 was the console to defeat. Lucky for Sony, N64 games cost 2-3 times as much. While Nintendo was going on about the amazing 4 games available on the console, Sony was saying "Or you could get ours which now has over 200 games, including Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Crash, and Twisted Metal; and upcoming later Wild Arms, Final Fantasy 7, and Resident Evil 2.

The Wii peaked in 2009, its third year on the market.  Sales really began to tank in 2011 when the stream of new releases dried up and there was basically nothing but Skyward Sword, but it still sold over 10 million units that year.  It was selling around 20 million units a year for 4 years while the games were coming, 10 million when the year the games topped coming, and around 5 million the year it was replaced.

Despite the claims that the Wii's sales were front-loaded, it actually peaked later in its life-cycle than previous Nintendo home-consoles and saw more consistent sales as well.  The most front-loaded Nintendo console is the N64, which sold like crazy at launch for a while in 1997 before losing its momentum that same year.  The Gamecube peaked in its second year.  The Wii peaked in year 3 and didn't drop off that much until year 5.  It was a full 6 years between the launch of the Wii and the launch of its successor, a full year longer than the previous consoles.

PS1 sales really took off later in its lifespan, specifically after Final Fantasy 7 launched in 1997, though it wasn't selling poorly before then.

PS2 is perhaps the most unusual beast of all because it sold over 50 million units AFTER the PS3 launched.

If memory serves, there were periods where both the PS2 and Wii were outselling their immediate successors.  The PS1 also sold a ton after the PS2 had launched.

Playstation has one big advantage in that Sony sells in many markets outside of North America, Japan, and Europe that Nintendo doesn't really ship much of any to.  But even without that nothing sells tens of millions well into the following generation the way Sony consoles do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_sales

https://www.statista.com/statistics/227012/lifetime-unit-sales-of-nintendos-home-consoles/ (note. I'm going by January-December in my descriptions above, not the fiscal year like this link does).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2_sales

Congrats Nintendo, well deserved.

I predict the Switch and PS4 will continue this dance all the way up till the PS5 launches. It all comes down to which console has their bigger releases coming up. Both are doing great and as gamers we only win as a result.

Can't really point a failure in this logic =p

Yep Switch is doing fantastic. Much better than most predictions. Now it is just a matter of how far it will go on pushing its LTD higher.

Final Fantasy 7 was what really made PS1 explode. That is one of the few real system sellers out there.

What does the PS4 have to do with this? 

OP and title reads Switch is selling faster than all PS and Xbox

So if PS4 have passed 3DS+WiiU then it is quite expectable that Switch can do it.

EDIT: And if I were to do like you, what does 3DS and WiiU have to do with this thread?

based on the trend lines, it looks like it should easily be able to hit 50+ million sales by the end of its third year, if not skyrocket past it

except xbox gamers :(

Yeah, 50m+ at years end sounds right, this year should be easily stronger than 2018. was for Switch.