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Forums - Sales - Switch Sales Predictions: Open Your Eyes - UPDATE: Switch LTD Shipments Reach 111.08m by June 30th, Forecast for Current Fiscal Year Remains at 21.0m

zorg1000 on 26 April 2018
Luke888 said:
zorg1000 said:

3.95 million away from Gamecube so like you said probably wont reach it by end of June but will easily by end of Sept.

About 15 million away from N64, should pass it by end of Dec.

I think Switch has a shot at beating GameCube, there's a few weeks of sales after E3 and, if they have a good showing, people will start buying Switches

Has there really ever been a time where E3 caused a spike in sales?

Spring is typically the slowest sales period in the year but the Switch lineup is better than Jan-Mar so i think sales will be relatively stable this quarter so ~3 million shipped.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

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peachbuggy on 26 April 2018
RolStoppable said:
Asriel said:
Great work, Rol. How do you see Labo performing, out of curiosity?

That's very hard to say because there's no precedence for this exact type of product. There's a lot of potential because it's a novel idea and at least the Variety Kit caters to many different interests. The Robot Kit is much more limited because its premise is tailored to boys, and it already shows in the early sales data we got from Japan (Variety Kit outsold Robot Kit by 3:1).

I think the Variety Kit will perform well enough for Nintendo to roll out new kits in addition to the current ones, so Labo will be more than just two games. The primary target demographic (6-12 year old kids) of Labo will skew the effect on hardware sales heavily towards the holiday season, because kids don't have $350+ lying around, so they are dependent on gifts and Christmas always trumps birthdays and is always on the same day of the year for everyone. If Labo manages to stay relevant for a few years, the hardware price of Switch will eventually be less of a barrier. Labo could become similar to Skylanders. As in, being a hot item among kids that everyone needs to have. 

zorg1000 has said that he can see Labo becoming as big as Wii Fit, Brain Training and Nintendogs, but I don't see a success story of that magnitude. It's plausible that the Variety Kit sells 5m+ in its lifetime, but that's still a far cry from the aforementioned games. Maybe if all Labo Kits were added up, then we could get to 20m+, but that's cheating. 10m for all kits combined is as high as I am inclined to go at this point in time. Chances are that future kits are more specific like the Robot one and therefore less appealing.

In the current fiscal year that is forecasted to have shipments of 20m Switch units, Nintendo must be confident in what they have with Labo, Super Smash Bros. and possibly Pokémon or a big unannounced title. They are basically banking on a 10m holiday quarter because Q1 of this fiscal year will be ~3m and Q2 won't be much better. They need 10m during the holiday quarter and close out the fiscal year with a Q4 of ~3.5m.

If i were to guess, Smash for September, Animal Crossing and Mario Party for holidays, Pokemon Q4/Feb '19 or so. As for LABO, given that it will appeal to different demographic and likely home to several internet memes/videos, i can see it legging it out to maybe even 10m (Variety pack) over a long period of time. Subsequent and Robot kits decent sales but not up to variety levels. The steering wheel and pedal model leads me to hope for a LABO racing for the holidays. I think LABO is appealing to different types of consumer that exist on the Switch atm too, so i see it driving decent HW sales too, especially during the holidays. If this indeed Nintendo's release schedule, then i see the 20m figure being reached comfortably.



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zorg1000 on 26 April 2018
LipeJJ said:
RolStoppable said:

That's very hard to say because there's no precedence for this exact type of product. There's a lot of potential because it's a novel idea and at least the Variety Kit caters to many different interests. The Robot Kit is much more limited because its premise is tailored to boys, and it already shows in the early sales data we got from Japan (Variety Kit outsold Robot Kit by 3:1).

I think the Variety Kit will perform well enough for Nintendo to roll out new kits in addition to the current ones, so Labo will be more than just two games. The primary target demographic (6-12 year old kids) of Labo will skew the effect on hardware sales heavily towards the holiday season, because kids don't have $350+ lying around, so they are dependent on gifts and Christmas always trumps birthdays and is always on the same day of the year for everyone. If Labo manages to stay relevant for a few years, the hardware price of Switch will eventually be less of a barrier. Labo could become similar to Skylanders. As in, being a hot item among kids that everyone needs to have. 

zorg1000 has said that he can see Labo becoming as big as Wii Fit, Brain Training and Nintendogs, but I don't see a success story of that magnitude. It's plausible that the Variety Kit sells 5m+ in its lifetime, but that's still a far cry from the aforementioned games. Maybe if all Labo Kits were added up, then we could get to 20m+, but that's cheating. 10m for all kits combined is as high as I am inclined to go at this point in time. Chances are that future kits are more specific like the Robot one and therefore less appealing.

In the current fiscal year that is forecasted to have shipments of 20m Switch units, Nintendo must be confident in what they have with Labo, Super Smash Bros. and possibly Pokémon or a big unannounced title. They are basically banking on a 10m holiday quarter because Q1 of this fiscal year will be ~3m and Q2 won't be much better. They need 10m during the holiday quarter and close out the fiscal year with a Q4 of ~3.5m.

The last paragraph: not necessarily, Rol. They could release a big game on September, for example, like Smash or Animal Crossing, and significantly boost Q2 shipments. Maybe Pokémon will be an early 2019 game too, that would boost Q4 a lot too.

Even if Smash releases in Sept, it will probably be in the 2nd half so it wont likely have a huge effect on the overall quarterly shipments.

Rol is spot on, the 3 non-holiday quarters will each be ~3.5m with the holidays around ~10m.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

trent44 on 26 April 2018

FY 2017 results:

3DS:

6.40 million consoles (down 12% YoY)
35.64 million games (down 35.3% YoY)

Switch:

15.05 million consoles (17.79m total)
63.51 million games (68.97m total)

FY 2018 Forecast:

3DS:

4.00 million consoles
16.00 million games

Switch:

20.00 million consoles
100.00 million games

Basically, Nintendo plans for 3DS hardware and software to crash this year (shipping 37.5% less 3DSs with 55.11% less games this next 12 months)

While Nintendo Switch will blossom, (shipping 33.33% more Nintendo Switches with 57.45% more games)

I think Nintendo can hit all 4 forcasts this year, but I think they are still being a bit conservative on Nintendo Switch hardware forcasts and they will probably revise that forcast up during the September 31st results or the December 31st results, by as much as an extra 4 million Nintendo Switches.

I think they have another giant seller, such as Animal Crossing, ready for November if Pokemon gets pushed back to February, If Pokemon launches in November, Animal Crossing will launch in February instead.

So depending on how smooth the development process goes, it could end up either way, and I think Nintendo doesn't quite have the final verdict on that yet.

Either way, they will have a bigger year than last year which is positive momentum for third party developers to hop on the success train.

Many third parties will make bank, a few will miss the opportunity for various reasons.

All around, great news today!

:)



jonathanalis on 26 April 2018

20 million seem too much.
Id bet in 17 or 18 million in this year.
Price cut close?



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jonathanalis on 27 April 2018
SpokenTruth said:
jonathanalis said:
20 million seem too much.
Id bet in 17 or 18 million in this year.
Price cut close?

What exactly makes it too much?

We had the 4 juggernauts system sellers (in 10 millmil range eventually) in 2017(zelda, kart, Odyssey, splatoon) and sold 15 million. 

In 2018, we have only smash for now, I can see they announcing other big 10m range game, but still is half of last year... 

I still believe in growth due to momentum of already launched games, new smaller releases and possible 2  really big games. 



The_Liquid_Laser on 27 April 2018
trent44 said:
FY 2017 results:

3DS:

6.40 million consoles (down 12% YoY)
35.64 million games (down 35.3% YoY)

Switch:

15.05 million consoles (17.79m total)
63.51 million games (68.97m total)

FY 2018 Forecast:

3DS:

4.00 million consoles
16.00 million games

Switch:

20.00 million consoles
100.00 million games

Basically, Nintendo plans for 3DS hardware and software to crash this year (shipping 37.5% less 3DSs with 55.11% less games this next 12 months)

While Nintendo Switch will blossom, (shipping 33.33% more Nintendo Switches with 57.45% more games)

I think Nintendo can hit all 4 forcasts this year, but I think they are still being a bit conservative on Nintendo Switch hardware forcasts and they will probably revise that forcast up during the September 31st results or the December 31st results, by as much as an extra 4 million Nintendo Switches.

I think they have another giant seller, such as Animal Crossing, ready for November if Pokemon gets pushed back to February, If Pokemon launches in November, Animal Crossing will launch in February instead.

So depending on how smooth the development process goes, it could end up either way, and I think Nintendo doesn't quite have the final verdict on that yet.

Either way, they will have a bigger year than last year which is positive momentum for third party developers to hop on the success train.

Many third parties will make bank, a few will miss the opportunity for various reasons.

All around, great news today!

:)

I believe they projected 10m for this past year, so I'd say they blew past that projection pretty easily.  For this next year I think they are going to exceed their 3DS projections.  I don't think they are going to make their Switch hardware projection though.  Nintendo is much more bullish on Labo than I am, and I think NIntendo is going to flub their online service in its first year.  In fact, the Switch hack may already be enough to screw up the online service for a while.

The people at NIntendo are a bunch of arrogant geniuses.  Sometimes their genius shows more and sometimes their arrogance shows more.  When they are humbled, their genius shows and they make stuff like the Wii and the Switch and Zelda: Breath of the Wild.  But when they are arrogant that make stuff like the Wii U and Nintendoland.    Right now I look at Labo and I see Nintendo in arrogance mode.  I think they are overestimating Labo and their online service.  I also think they are going to fall short of that 20m projection by several million.  A little dose of humility would do them good.



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zorg1000 on 28 April 2018
jonathanalis said:
SpokenTruth said:

What exactly makes it too much?

We had the 4 juggernauts system sellers (in 10 millmil range eventually) in 2017(zelda, kart, Odyssey, splatoon) and sold 15 million. 

In 2018, we have only smash for now, I can see they announcing other big 10m range game, but still is half of last year... 

I still believe in growth due to momentum of already launched games, new smaller releases and possible 2  really big games. 

Zelda released in the previous fiscal year so it was 3 juggernauts, not 4. Mario Kart in April, Splatoon in July & Super Mario in Oct.

Its too early for us to say they dont have enough big sellers this FY since we dont know the full lineup. We only have concrete dates for games releasing thru mid-July so just over 1/4 of the FY.

But even if they dont release as many mega hits, they already have a much steadier flow of small-medium sized hits lined up along with last years titles still moving hardware.

On top of that, they will likely start to release better value bundles this holiday. For example, Switch+Mario Kart for $299 or Splatoon for Japan.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

Kristof81 on 28 April 2018

I'm confused. You guys say FY 2018 in future tense, where in fact FY 2018 just ended last month. We're now in FY 2019.



StarDoor on 28 April 2018
Kristof81 said:
I'm confused. You guys say FY 2018 in future tense, where in fact FY 2018 just ended last month. We're now in FY 2019.

For Nintendo, FY3/2018 just ended last month, which is another way of saying FY 2017. If you include the "3/", it indicates when the fiscal year ends, but if you don't, it indicates when the fiscal year begins.

Look at how they organize their IR information:

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/earnings/index.html

Last edited by StarDoor - on 28 April 2018