Nintendo isn't conservative with price cuts. They used those whenever it made sense but are being stubborn with the switch. Expecting then to go 4 years without one is too much. Phasing out a clearly undesirable product like the lite and replacing it with a real one isn't a pipe dream, it's just optimistic. I am expecting a great lineup and a price cut. With or without the lite being fixed, it will give the switch a big yoy boost.

Like I just noted, after the addition of 2DS none of the other models recieved price cuts. Wii U never recieved price cuts. They can be very conservative.

It absolutely is a pipe dream, the only hardware to be phased out that quick was Virtual Boy and Lite is nowhere close to VB level.

2020-2021 is a great year for Nintendo to launch a new Switch model. 3ds has many hardware revisions, 3ds XL, new 3ds, new 3ds XL, 2ds, and new 2ds XL. I think Nintendo is going to take that route as well with XL or Pro version this time around.

This is just my opinion. It’s time for Nintendo to leave traditional generations behind and start more frequent releases of upgraded hardware. It worked beyond wonders for the DS, and DS only did a small portion of what is possible. Everything on the Switch is scalable, games wouldn’t require much of an update unless they drastically changed the resolution or something (not just scaling it up, but changing the ratio).

For measuring the legs of a console I like to use the percentage of total sales it sold in it's first 4 years. E.G if a console sells 70% of it's lifetime sales in it's first 4 years it has much worse legs than a console that sells just 55% and has another 45% still to come. The PS4 sold 67m in it's first 4 years so let's go with the PS4 selling 120m LT to put it in the table:

You're right it has neither bad or good legs... for a PlayStation. But it exceeds the legs of every Nintendo system that's been released since they joined the market.

"At that point the switch will be at around 100m. It will keep dropping in the following years, ending it's life at 125-130m."

100m by the end of 2021? No.

They'll be at around 50m at the end of this year, you expect them to sell 50m in the next 2 years?

End of 2019 = 50m
End of 2020 = ~72m
End of 2021 = ~89m

By March 2021 (4 years on the market) I expect Switch sales will be 74m. Legs somewhere between DS and 3DS would then put lifetime sales of the Switch at around 112m.

Imho I expect the Ps4 to end up at around 133m. Can the Switch match it? Probably not. I expect the Ps4 to outleg it ultimately. I expect the Switch to have higher peaks but to not have the legs to outsell the Ps4 when all is said and done. The only way the Switch can outsell the Ps4 in total final shipments is if it has a CONSIDERABLY higher peak, or if it has the best legs of a Nintendo console, or some combination of both.

There are so many ways to look at this and change the numbers. One could claim we should count sales after year 5/6, or after the peak, or after the successor is out. In all of those we could also argue between % sales or absolute numbers and in most cases your list order would be different.

If the switch has a similar increase in 2020 and sells a little above 2019 in 2021, it's getting around 100m at the end of 2021. Speculation is all we can do right now but since it sold so much without a price cut, I find it more likely than not that it will sell those numbers.

Interesting, though its what I always suspected but never looking into, but its good to see data backing up what I thought.

Nintendo machine tend to have very bad legs, unlike their software titles. This is my main reason why I believe (near certainty) that the switch won't sell 100 million

Sales before vs after 4 years is the ideal statistic to judge a systems legs imo. Using absolute numbers without converting to percentage doesn't make sense as legs are all about how a product resists decline not how well it sells. It should be proportional. A system that sells 60m in it's first 4 years and then 20m after doesn't have stronger legs than a system that sells 20m in it's first 4 years and then 18m after. One has barely declined, thus strong legs, the other has declined massively, yet is still the more successful system.

As for the point about the year changing it's outcome, I did year 5 as well the results remain similar. "after the successor is out" would be a damning metric to use for Nintendo products.

"If the switch has a similar increase in 2020 and sells a little above 2019 in 2021, it's getting around 100m at the end of 2021."

I expect it will have a mild increase in 2020, nothing major. I don't think there's much chance at all that 2021 can match, let alone beat 2019.

To get 100m by the end of 2021 what are you expecting? Something like this?

2020: 28m
2021: 22m

This seems VERY optimistic, but you're right all we can do is speculate. We'll have a much clearer picture by summer 2021. We'll know by then how high the peak was in 2020 (Assuming it does peak which isn't completely guaranteed) and have some indication of how big the decline in 2021 is.

The switch is selling too fast to sell under 100m, it might not have the legs of a PlayStation but it's definitely going to be one of the strongest Nintendo systems when it comes to legs.

I'd say the opposite to you, that the Switch reaching 100m is a near certainty.

The only way it won't is if 2019 was the peak and 2020 see's significant decline, I don't see this happening. 2021 is the year when the decline rears it's head.

My prediction:

2017 - 13.1m 
2018 - 16.5m (29.6m)
2019 - 20.5m (50.1m)
2020 - 21.5m (71.6m)
2021 - 16.5m (88.1m)
2022 - 11m (99.1m)

With years after 2022 bringing the LT total up to roughly 110m.