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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Prediction: The Switch will become the best selling console yet!

Well its possible, we will know about what exatly we can expect after full 2018. Switch sales.



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Again with these crazy predictions that have no chance of happening.



Yes, no, maybe so.

We should make a prediction like that after 2018.



Miyamotoo said:
Teeqoz said:
There's one major flaw - you completely ignore overlap. How many Wii owners were also DS owners? How many Gamecube owners were also GBA owners? N64 and Gameboy?

With the Switch, everyone that previously bought 2 different consoles now only buy one.

One more thing - the Switch is likely to remain the most expensive Nintendo handheld in a long time. Now, you can certainly sell a lot even with a higher price, but (and this is mostly based on speculation) - I believe quite a lot of Nintendo handheld sales are from people buying it twice or even thrice. I have two main pieces of evidence for this. The first being merely anectdotal, it's simply that everyone I know who has ever owned a nintendo handheld has owned multiple models of that exact same handheld. The second piece of data that suggests this is Nintendo handhelds and handhelds in general having ridiculously low attach rates. One possible explanation for this would be that quite a large part of the userbase double or triple dip on hardware, but don't match that with an increased software purchasing. With its price being higher than any other Nintendo handheld, fewer people will double or triple dip.

I would say not too much!? GC sold 23m while GBA sold 81m, Wii U sold 13m while 3DS will be around 75m at end.

Switch will definatly have multiply revisions and difrent type of hardwares, so people will also buy multiply Switch.

Also, Switch with big 3rd party AAA games in full handheld mode can be and alredy becoming quite popular and for people that are not Nintendo fans.

You don't think many of the 23 million GC owners also owned GBAs? And same with Wii U owners?

Even without overlap, the only generation where Nintendo's combined home console and handheld sales exceeded the PS2 was the 7th gen.

Like I said, some people will buy multiple Switches, but with a higher price than previous Nintendo handhelds, it will be fewer.



Teeqoz said:
Miyamotoo said:

I would say not too much!? GC sold 23m while GBA sold 81m, Wii U sold 13m while 3DS will be around 75m at end.

Switch will definatly have multiply revisions and difrent type of hardwares, so people will also buy multiply Switch.

Also, Switch with big 3rd party AAA games in full handheld mode can be and alredy becoming quite popular and for people that are not Nintendo fans.

You don't think many of the 23 million GC owners also owned GBAs? And same with Wii U owners?

Even without overlap, the only generation where Nintendo's combined home console and handheld sales exceeded the PS2 was the 7th gen.

Like I said, some people will buy multiple Switches, but with a higher price than previous Nintendo handhelds, it will be fewer.

I don't think many of them did, few millions probably, at thats quite low number compared to 3DS/GBA numbers.

Cant argue to that, but like I wrote Switch can be easily be more popular to people that are not only Nintendo fans.

We could easily have Switch Mini/Pocket, its not hard to imagine that at end Switch Mini/Pocket could have price point of $100-150.



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First of all, 150m is a lot. At its current level The Switch will need to either be sold as long as the PS2 did or suddenly have a record breaking sales (25mil+ a year). Both are very unlikely to happen.

Second is about your argument. Do you really expect that most, if not all of the PS4 owner will suddenly jump on Switch?



A handheld gamer only (for now).

Well, bold prediction. At this point I think this unlikely, but we'll see.

 

After the Labo-presentation I think Switch will outsell the Wii. This is not because I think Labo will sell much Switches - I think Labo has immense support in a niche (kids and crafters). But what I see is, that Nintendo pinpointed exactly their target group before the Labo-reveal. This leads me to think Nintendo knows what they are doing, they have made their market research. And as Nintendo also claims 20M are possible for financial year 2018/2019 I tend to believe them now. This would be Wii-level, and so I see they can sell Wii-like.

 

Now, why I don't think (yet) they can outsell PS2 and DS (the current sales leaders). Let's take a look how these consoles reached their popularity.

First PS2. PS2 has catched a generation, with the right games, first- and third-party. It captured many target groups including casuals (Dance Dance Revolution was a thing, remember). I think the Switch can copy these points so far. The whole point of the Switch as I understand it now and the reason they named it Switch is, that the console can support a lot of different play-styles. The Joycons can be used like Wiimotes, but also as classical controllers, and also can support stuff like Labo. They even would support VR-gaming, if Nintendo goes that path. I think Nintendo knows this (also a thing I gathered from the Labo-reveal) and designed the Switch specifically for this. So like the PS2 the Switch can reach many different target audiences. BUT...

But the PS2 did more. The success of the PS2 is based on more than just that. The PS2 sold over a long time after the PS3 hit the market. This long tail added 40M. The PS2 had shipped March 2007 118M consoles and was going on until 158M shipped [1]. This was surely in part because the PS3 had a botched start, but it also means Sony supported the PS2 in the ongoing years. The WiiU was also not blessed with a great start (and in difference to PS3 never recovered). End of 2012 Wii was at 98.5M sold [2]. But Nintendo quickly killed it despite the missing success of WiiU and the console sold on to 101.6M [3]. So the Wii although exceedingly popular had in difference to PS2 no long tail, it sold measly 3-4M after the successor released. The difference is the willingness of Sony and Nintendo to support their old stuff after the new released. I see no reason this policy changed at Nintendo, so I expect they do the same with Switch. That would mean Switch has to sell more in a shorter time period than PS2. This is not impossible, but makes the thing a lot more difficult. And I have another BUT...

But the PS2 had one more advantage. Sony as an general consumer electronics company has much more incentive to dive into more and smaller markets worldwide. And they do so. Hence the success in the Rest of the World for Sony consoles. Nintendo on the other hand is a much more focussed company. They do gaming. As such the investment in smaller markets are less likely to recoup their costs. If Sony advances in a new country, they do not only sell consoles and games, they also sell TVs, smartphones, computers and so on. So financing a headquarter in a new country, placing ads, reaching out to retailers is much more likely to be a win for Sony than for Nintendo. So they are more into other countries. Look at the rest of the world sales of Sony consoles [4]. PS2 sold 25.5M. Even the more ill-fated PS3 sold 12.5M there. Look now at the popular Nintendo--consoles. The Wii has less than 10M sold in ROW. Even the DS lost against the PS2 because of ROW, only 12.5M there. And this picture solidifies (not to this extent, but still) in europe. Sony consoles constantly do better in europe than Nintendo consoles. The reasons are the same, europe consists of many countries. So, the DS beat the PS2 in markets like America and very much in Japan, but lost all this in europe and ROW. We can expect the Switch loses at least 10-15M in these markets to PS2, which it has to recoup in other regions.

 

Add these two BUTs together, and you see that the Switch struggles in comparison to PS2. What about the DS?

Again, the DS was woldly popular and supported many target groups, an achievement I see the Switch can do. Here I see the point mostly in that each household got multiple DS. Each kid needs their own DS. Ask yourself: can you see purchase a Switch for your wife, each of your kids and yourself? Or do you see your family use a shared or maybe two Switches? Well, that  can change though, if Nintendo starts to go for this use. But it does not happen now, so we can't really expect that.

 

So, in conclusion: I currently see Switch matching the Wii-sales. It can do what the Wii could and more. It also got the 3rd-party-support to back this. I see at this point the Switch clearing the 100M milestone. But for 150M a lot more must be done. I doubt Nintendo can reach out into more markets, but at least they could try China and some other markets to expand their reach and make their ROW-weakness less present. Nintendo also needs to support the system after the successor is out instead of dropping it like in the past. I can't see them doing this though currently, hence I remain skeptical. Their best shot at reaching that high a number is instilling the need to get a Switch for every family member. I cannot see them doing that currently, but it could be in their plans. It is yet to see. If these things happen, they have a shot at 150M. I would currently put that at 15% chance. If we see more of the strategy of Nintendo unfold in the following years my assessment could change.



3DS-FC: 4511-1768-7903 (Mii-Name: Mnementh), Nintendo-Network-ID: Mnementh, Switch: SW-7706-3819-9381 (Mnementh)

my greatest games: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

10 years greatest game event!

bets: [peak year] [+], [1], [2], [3], [4]

Miyamotoo said:
Teeqoz said:

You don't think many of the 23 million GC owners also owned GBAs? And same with Wii U owners?

Even without overlap, the only generation where Nintendo's combined home console and handheld sales exceeded the PS2 was the 7th gen.

Like I said, some people will buy multiple Switches, but with a higher price than previous Nintendo handhelds, it will be fewer.

I don't think many of them did, few millions probably, at thats quite low number compared to 3DS/GBA numbers.

Cant argue to that, but like I wrote Switch can be easily be more popular to people that are not only Nintendo fans.

We could easily have Switch Mini/Pocket, its not hard to imagine that at end Switch Mini/Pocket could have price point of $100-150.

Even if it's only a few (let's say 5) million in overlap, you need every million you can get. The 3DS and GBA just barely crossed half of what the PS2 did. Remove 5 million and it becomes even more unlikely.

The price will drop, but the Switch will ultimately still have a higher minimum price than the GBA and DS reached, and 3DS will reach, simply because all of the aforementioned had weak hardware (for their time), even for a handheld. The Switch on the other hand is pretty powerful for a handheld.  The 3DS was about 10 times as powerful as the DS. The Switch on the other hand is about 100 times as powerful as the 3DS.



mZuzek said:
I think we can consider this your true introduction, then. Welcome to VGC, Liquid Laser.
wombat123 said:
These are the kind of prediction threads that make people remember you on this site.

Never saw it that way. But yes, you're both right, this thread will make the Laser a well-known member.



3DS-FC: 4511-1768-7903 (Mii-Name: Mnementh), Nintendo-Network-ID: Mnementh, Switch: SW-7706-3819-9381 (Mnementh)

my greatest games: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

10 years greatest game event!

bets: [peak year] [+], [1], [2], [3], [4]

Woah, woah, woah, are we at that point already? Let's keep our heads cool a little longer before making such claims. Personally, I don't think the modern market will allow any device that isn't a phone to sell that much in any segment or even any two segments combined. Look at the insane decline in handheld sales, for instance, the market is clearly becoming partitioned and branching out. Fringe consumers have so much to choose from than before, and these were essential in the PS2's insane lifetime sales, together with an unusually long life cycle with long sustained sales, screw-up's by all competition and simply massive developer support. The Switch, as it stands, holds none of these advantages.

Time will tell, but for now, OP sounds far fetched.