3DS will have finished it's life by the time PS4 gets to it, PS4 averages 15m a year which means by the end of next year it'll only hit what the 3DS is on now, by then 3DS will likely be around 70m and replaced by Switch.

Thats near 9m after the previous game sold around 5m, that's a 4m gain on the console userbase alone now throw in the portable userbase with that immense hype their predictions are not wild they're very much plausible despite the optimistic nature.

3DS shipping and production likely won't end next year though. It will still be on shelves and in the pipes when PS4 beats it.

That 4 million gain came from a 101 million gain in install base. The chances of Switch delivering that kind of install base are remote.

It would be ramped down heavily after next year.

The 4 million gain came from the momentum of a successful platform not the total number in the userbase, Switch doesn't need to deliver the same install base it just needs to deliver good momentum for the unified userbase, for example Wii U and 3DS combined won't equal the 100m of the Wii but Smash 4 has equalled Brawl's numbers in combined sales.

I certainly hope so; for Nintendo's sake. They need to throw their full force behind Switch to give it the best possible start.

If portable owners were so interested in console Zelda, they would have bought a console for it, and I'm sure those who were, generally did.

Portables have had their own Zelda games though, the reason portable and home console gaming exist is because people not only have preference in platform experience but also set up and then we come to what income each person has as well, some can simply not get both platforms so opt for one. You can have a strong interest in a game but still not get the platform as a result, OOT for one sold 4.2m on 3DS over half of what the game sold on original release, Smash on 3DS sold 7.5m outselling all the console games except for Brawl and so on, this highlights that the are many people with interest in the console games but only opt for one platform due to the mentioned reasons.

I just don't buy that there's millions upon millions of portable gamers who never bought prior console Zeldas but will run out and buy Breath of the Wild. Time will tell of course, but while over 11 million is not impossible, it does seem highly unlikely to me. Yes, it looks like a great game, yes it has hype, but to pass the 11 million mark you need more than that, you need the kind of mass market pop culture appeal of something like Skyrim or Mario Kart.

5m

Why not portables have always heavily outsold their console counterparts it's very likely in that sense, BOTW will be available to them on a platform they'll buy as the successor to what they currently play on so why wouldn't they buy it, the requirement of having to buy another platform has been removed.

Whose to say BOTW can't gain that appeal? The aren't really any games out there like Zelda even adventure games, the closest Okami is also only vaguely similar, this is how games like MK and Skyrim gain that appeal. Passing 11m to me is more a question of the Switch taking off and Nintendo putting BOTW in as many people's faces off that momentum.

Because if those millions of gamers were interested in console Zeldas, they would have bought past ones.

And the Zelda series has been around for over 30 years but has never had the casual appeal needed to reach the 11 million plus range. It's a hardcore gamer's series, it appeals primarily to Nintendo fans and to the kind of gamers like us who take the hobby very seriously and frequent video game forums. That's enough for a game to sell in the 3-8 million range, but to blow passed 11 million you really need to get the casuals on board in droves, and I just don't think BotW is trendy or hip enough to do so.

Lifetime?