fatslob-:O said:
Easily PS4 ...
If we take a look at their first calendar year of shipments (Which means that we're going so far as to exclude PS4's first quarter!) the Switch already can't match the PS4 with the former expected to ship ~14.5M units at the end of this year while the latter shipped ~15.5M units in it's first full calendar year ...
What's more is Nintendo is only expecting the Switch to be upto par with 3DS in terms of shipments in similar timeframes and especially in a similar period where PS4 arguably had less incentives to be purchased in comparison to the Switch when most of it's AAA games were cross-gen titles where the said games already had abundant access to existing userbases ...
Once Nintendo releases the rest of their flagship franchises such as 2D Mario, Animal Crossing, Pokemon and Smash Bros it will become substantially harder to move hardware ...
I cannot envision a scenario where Switch will be able to have more than 4 strong years of hardware sales without the use of new IPs or the growth of existing IPs like we saw with the DS while in PS4's 5th calendar year in which there's a possibility where it could ship about 85% of what it did this year and the in it's 6th calendar year it could still have a relatively strong showing ...
In spite of the fact that the Switch has had stronger releases than it's predecessor, it is only expected to match it's predecessor first fiscal year in the given similar timeframes, probably still can't match the PS4 in it's first year and then there's a high chance that hardware revisions won't be as plentiful for the Switch in comparison to it's predecessors ...
Nevermind the idea of Switch beating the PS4, it has to first show that it can at least match it!
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Your analysis is a bit off.
First, let's compare by fiscal year since we have official numbers for that (and the Switch launched in March so calendar year is a bad comparison anyway). In the PS4's first full fiscal year (3/31/14 - 3/31/15) Sony shipped 14.8 million PS4s. If Nintendo meets their projections, they will sell 14 million units. Nintendo reports sale through, so the 800K difference can be mostly attributed to global retail inventory. (https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ps4-ships-22-3-million-units-worldwide/1100-6427007/)
In the second full fiscal year, Sony shipped 17.7 million PS4s. According to the WSJ (which has been credible in the past), Nintendo is expecting to manufacture 25-30 million Switch systems for its second full fiscal year. This puts it well ahead of the PS4. Moreover, if it matched Sony's sales in the first full fiscal year, why would it not happen in the next, especially as there will be more games next year. (https://www.dualshockers.com/sony-sells-17-7-million-ps4-units-in-fiscal-year-2015/)
Whether Nintendo can meet the 14 million projection has yet to be seen, but it's likely as the system has taken off in Japan and is top in US 5 out of the 7 months since its release. Nevertheless, your numbers appear a bit off.
