I stand corrected. IIRC the PS4 took a while to surpass it. I thought it did better in Japan than it actually did.

If they're talking about ground-up exclusives for the Switch, then I can see most big titles not hitting until 2019... but how will 3rd parties NOT have any heavy hitters for the Switch out over the next 14 months??

The Switch isn't that hard to port to or develop for according to most 3rd parties that have worked with it so far, so why couldn't most Japanese 3rd parties release Switch versions of their multiplatform games over the next year or so? Hell, the Switch is getting Doom '16 THIS YEAR and Wolfenstein II early next year from Western developers, so no reason we shouldn't see major releases by Capcom, Squeenix and the like on the Switch as well (provided of course that they're not exclusive to other consoles).

No problem, and ya it took PS4 awhile to pass it but its not like PS4 has done great in Japan either, its kind of a middle of the pack performer.

It has/will sell better than all Sega/Xbox devices along with Wii U, GC, N64 & Vita but will be far below NES, SNES, GB, PS1, PS2, PSP, DS & 3DS. It will sell right around PS3/Wii in Japan which both did good but not great.

The thing is, did you ever hear something like that for Playstation or Xbox? It's always just Nintendo who has to prove it's selling well first. Which is difficult because since they hold back their games, Nintendo lacks games and thus is not selling well. Nintendo is condemned to sell on it's first parrty titles early on, or else their console fails because everybody else is holding back. if the same had happened to the PS4 and Xbox ONE, they would have crashed and burned after Knack and Ryse flopped saleswise. Ps360 got plenty of games despite each of them selling quite badly for 3 years straight yet nobdy pulled the plug or questioned if they should continue to support them, on the other hand the Wii, who outsold the other 2 consoles combined at that time, still got little support.

Ya i think you're right. Most major built from the ground up exclusives will likely be 2019 while 2018 will primarily be ports, indies and small-medium sized exclusives from 3rd parties.

The type of games that arent system sellers on their own but are nice support titles to fill in gaps between 1st party titles.

Granted it's possible that the way Nintendo initially showed off the system may not have been impressive to some third parties. Without knowing the context of how the marketing would be or how good Zelda would be, it is easy to look at the concept as basically a better version of the Wii U. The screen size is even exactly the same and there's no real hugely new idea, it's just far better execution with actual portability.

Great marketing (marketing at adults instead of kids) and a great launch lineup helped a lot in driving the system's initial success, but it is succeeded off basic execution more than trying to be a blue ocean miracle, it's hard for a third party to know for example that Nintendo would market so well after the Wii U was marketed so terribly.

Hopefully the devs get up to speed a bit faster than 2019 though. I do think you can at least port some games within 12 months without too much fuss. Two years is something more for a game that would be built entirely from scratch, and I don't expect too many of those regardless of the Switch's success, most games today are multiplatform in some way even on PS4. I don't expect many games built exclusively for the Switch from third parties, but something like Resident Evil 7 or even Final Fantasy XV if its brought to Switch should not require 2 years of development time even if assets have to be rebuilt in some instances. The basic game design, level design, art style, character design, is something a port doesn't have to concern itself that much with. 

Pokemon. There might also come a new Mario, Zelda and Mario Kart. You never know.

The thing is, there's more than just overall sales figures that companies are taking into account when considering what consoles they support. Taking your example of the previous console generation, the PS3 and 360 were relatively close to each other when it came to developing games for them, both having fairly similar processing powers and supporting the same game engines, whereas the Wii was quite different. In many ways those differences worked in its favour, but because it was different developing games for it couldn't just be done by porting a game from the other two consoles to it. Even when the same games were released on all three systems, the one on Wii often had to be built separately. I also don't ever recall the PS3 or 360 selling all that poorly even early on. They were certainly not in the same league as the Wii, but they were still doing fine from the beginning. I can't say why exactly the Wii got little support, but the fact it was just so different both in architecture and in its use of motion controls that many developers may have been unsure how to even approach the system. 

In addition, appearances count for a lot, and right now Nintendo is coming off what is basically their least succesful home console ever with the Wii U, whereas the PS3 for example was following up on the most successful home console ever. Game companies have a tendency to look at recent history when making important decisions, and in that regard the Switch had an uphill battle to fight compared to the PS3 or PS4.  

I want companies to support the Switch more, but I just accepted the fact that it was most likely not going to happen early on in any huge way. Developing for a new system will always take resources, regardless of whether you can develop games parallel to one another. The shift from the 3DS to the Switch will happen, but game companies are in most cases going to take the safe bet, and in this case that safe bet was the 3DS over the Switch. It's not even about whether they could have made a profit by making games for the Switch, as many likely would have. Rather, I think it had more to do with the fact that there was more profit to be made elsewhere.

Koei-Tecmo has done well for itself, seeing what many other companies may not have, but that's just the reality of the business quite often. It's one of the reasons why I never buy consoles within the first year or two from their launch. And I agree with you, many companies would do very well starting with smaller projects on new consoles. I just rarely expect them to do so until a console has become a proven commodity. 

That is what you get.

I placed the 2 main offenders. I can list more if you want.

Capcom

Namco

After 8 months since PS4 released date was Feb 2014.