Back in 2019 I created a thread asking what people think will be Switch peak year. Little did I know, that my options were way to conservative. By now we know Switch didn't peak in 2018 and 2019, which were actual options. From the options in the thread only 2020 and later than 2020 are still possible.

But we are in 2021 now. With so far a performance mirroring the previous year and a decent lineup for the second half of the year *and* a new model underway, 2021 might be very well the year the Switch peaks.

Or, maybe we can look at 2020. We already know the big guns BOTW2, Splatoon 3, Pokemon Legends Arceus will release that year, but also smaller titles like Mario+Rabbids 2 or Project Triangle Strategy. And dark horses that still need a release date might fall into 2022, like Bayonetta 3 and Metroid Prime 4. So 2022 probably will have a pretty strong lineup.

With all that said, we should make a new revised peak year thread. What do you think will be the year the sales of the Switch will peak? I talk about calendar year here and the Switch hardware unit (not revenue and not games), just to be clear.

Place your bets ladies and gents.

I think 2021 will be the peak year. However, I cannot rule out 2022, considering the potential for Splatoon 3, Project Triangle Strategy, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, Pokemon Legends Arceus, and, possibly, BotW 2. Not to mention Nintendo hasn't really talked about 2022 games anyway so there are bound to be surprises like what we saw at E3 2021, with Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp, Metriod Dread, Wario Ware Get It Together!, etc. 2020 was a unique year (pandemic and Animal Crossing New Horizons exploding onto the scene) that will likely not be matched again, nor expected to. Nintendo was able to do what it needed to do this year, maintain momentum from last year's crazy, unpredictable, but incredible blowout. With the world still not out of the woods yet with COVID-19 and developers still trying to play catch up with their development schedules, Nintendo was able to provide a plethora of unique content that can satisfy a variety of consumers for Switch owners and potential Switch owners.

Of course, things could change and we may have developments that we may have never expected (like Ring Fit Adventure being as popular as it is for a game that pretty came out of nowhere with little time between initial reveal and release). Who knows how this new Switch OLED will do in the market and how it will be received by consumers. It will be interesting to say the least.

Going with 2022 personally, Breath of the Wild sequel, Splatoon 3, a Open World Pokemon game topped off by growing Japanese Third Party support ensures another year of growth in Japan and Asia. This year feels like it's a AA year for Nintendo - they have a lot of games coming out but Pokemon Remakes and Bowser's Fury are set to be their biggest 1st and 2nd party games - Monster Hunter Rise is looking like it will cross 10 million units but we are only now starting to see bigger Japanese third party projects land on the system. Next year support from third parties in Japan will further accelerate ensuring that along with the big hitters we have a lot more projects that are going to be targeting Switch as the lead system.

This cannot be understated, as Japanese third party games are what is going to be fueling growth in East Asia which is the biggest growth engine for Nintendo since the official China launch in December 2019, they've also entered a couple of smaller markets recently like Thailand. There is also other developing markets in South and Central America, Middle East, Eastern Europe where in the past Nintendo lacked the needed local partners, marketing or supply chain to compete. Now with Youtube, Twitter, FB and other social media being so important in WW marketing and overall globalization that's taken place since the Wii/DS heights Nintendo is better positioned to see growth in these markets. The main obstacle is the price of Nintendo's own games but this will be offset by Major Third Parties and Indies who are happy to sell their catalog titles at a fraction of their launch price digitally.

Another factor is the overall supply problems that have came into effect due to COVID, this are slowly getting resolved and the Switch wasn't impacted half as much as PS5/XSX but still it probably didn't allow them to scale to the level that they could have done in 2020 and 2021. Sure COVID pushed video gaming to new heights but at the same time it limited how much hardware you could produce and made Nintendo diversify their supply chain by having part of their production move to Vietnam. Maybe next year things will normalize and it will allow them to further scale production.

Finally we have things like OLED Switch and Price-cuts to think about, at the moment the current model is probably far cheaper to make compared to the launch due to economy of scale; thus if Nintendo sees demand slowing down they would be able to cut the price considerably for the Lite, Hybrid and possibly OLED next year - as no doubt even OLED will be sold at a profit at launch to gauge demand at its $350 price.

Interesting results so far. Three people voted for 2022, but they only bet a sum of $6.45 combined, so they have no trust at all in this option. But let's look at the results more systematically:

First view is the number of people, that chose one option, pretty straightforward:

Easy to see, most people believe in the peak this year.

But can people back up their opinion with the willingness to bet some amount? Let's look at the accumulated bets:

Obviously the ones voting for 2020 do not have trust in their choice. Also the later than 2022 option seems to be a bit lower.

We can gauge how much on average the voters trust their decision, by looking at the average bet amount per option:

So, while fewer people chose the 2022 option, they were more willing to bet big amounts of their hard-earned VG-currency.

The bets are still open, join in with your opinion.

Its actually very hard to predict, either way 2020/2021/2022 will all be very close in sales.

I'll go with this year, 2021. It's riding off of last years crazy momentum/demand + has a new hardware revision + other devices on the market are extremely supply constraint.

Next year has big releases but all sequels to games already on the Switch. The Switch OLED doesn't seem like the kind of device to encourage too much double dipping, so I don't expect a major sustained boost from it (not in unit sales anyway) and PS5/Series X will be getting into their stride, stealing some consumers coins come next holiday especially.

agreed.

The new Switch model probably not going to have a huge impact, so I'd say 2021 is peak

I'm going against the grain and saying 2020. 2021 will still be a flagship year. We'll see if I'm proven wrong on 2020 being the peak.

Still think 2020 will be the peak, but that 2021 won't be too far behind. I also think 2022 will at least be another 20M year though.

Sales from Apr-Sept look to be better in 2020 than 2021. I don't think holiday sales will be enough for 2021 to overtake 2020. Would love to be wrong, but either way this year will be a big year, as will next year.

Its between 2020 or 2021 imo.

Since so many are betting on 2021, I'll gamble on 2020 (should be bigger returns if the less voted on thing wins?).