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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - PR: Nintendo Switch Best Selling week Ever (US) (8.2mil+Sold Switches LTD) [Update: 8.6mil+]

quickrick on 29 November 2018
RolStoppable said:
quickrick said:

i did challenge it. 

"what Rolstoppable   wrote is  speculation nobody knows what switch did last year during those 5 days last year, it could be anywhere from 270-400 that's something we will never know, what we do know is nintendo gave a LTD for switch in the US, and it nintendo have never giving a false LTD in the US before, or a LTD for the US with missing numbers, it has never happened before, i don't see any reason to doubt these numbers and not trust Nintendo."

Oh, that was a challenge?

I considered it rambling, because of the bolded part. I've also highlighted one sentence in my quote above, because it reinforces that you choose to believe what you want to believe, even in the face of contradictory evidence.

In yesterday's post, I outlined what effect a lower number than 400k for the five-day-period in 2017 has on the remaining weeks in November in both 2017 and 2018. Your example of 270k means that last year the three weeks before Black Friday averaged ~170k units and the Black Friday shopping frenzy had barely any effect on Switch sales.

that's completely possible. mario came out at the end of october, and could have boosted switch sales. people on black friday are typically looking for deals, switch had none. besides the point, if 8.2 million was an error don't you think nintendo would informed anyone by now? IT IS PRETTY big NEWS and posted on almost every gaming website, and business websites as well. 

Last edited by quickrick - on 29 November 2018

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Replicant on 29 November 2018
RolStoppable said:

The one line in the current PR that nobody seems to have paid attention to is "Switch hardware grew by 115 percent compared to the same period last year." Since it isn't noted otherwise, this period should refer to Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday.

1. Looking at VGC's estimates for Black Friday week in 2017 (472k) and taking NPD results from last November into account (770k), it seems reasonable to assign ~400k to the five-day-period in 2017. So if 400k is the base value and sales grew by 115%, the result is 860k. Known NPD LTD for Switch through October 2018 is 7.38m (4.88m LTD in 2017, 2.50m in 2018). Adding 0.86m to 7.38m results in 8.24m or "more than 8.2m." This means all the rest of the November tracking period is unaccounted for in the announced LTD figure.

2. An alternative is that Switch performed notably worse than 400k during the five-day-period last year which would in turn raise its sales levels in the other weeks of the November NPD tracking period, all of which were before Black Friday. If we assign 300k as the new base value, the remaining weeks in 2017 average ~160k. What this means for 2018 is that 645k Switch consoles were sold during the five-day-period and the preceding two weeks average ~110k to get to a total of 860k and have a fully accounted for Switch LTD figure of "more than 8.2m." What we are looking at in this scenario is significantly lower momentum leading up to Black Friday week despite the preceding October NPD tracking periods showing average weekly sales of ~75k in 2017 and ~65k in 2018.

3. Running the middleground for completion's sake, 350k as the base value results in ~750k for the five-day-period in 2018, leaving a weekly average of only ~55k for the two preceding weeks of the November tracking period, if the PR's announced "more than 8.2m" figure doesn't leave any days out. That makes less sense than scenario 2.

Scenario 1 makes the most sense.

Thanks for clearing it up.

If November ends up being really close between Switch and PS4, Switch might take the year in the US considering how strong Nintendo usually is in December coupled with this year's Smash and Pokémon releases.

January-October 2018:
PS4: ~3,042,000
XB1: ~2,077,000
Switch: ~2,500,000

This is the numbers from last November and December, right?

November 2017:
PS4: ~1,582,000
XB1: ~1,376,000
Switch: ~800,000

December 2017:
PS4: 1,080,000
XB1: 1,365,000
Switch: 1,500,000



colafitte on 29 November 2018

In fact Rol, to argument my theory why the numbers can be correct, I want to say that those numbers from VGC are from a different set of days. If those 5 days instead of 400k like you said are 300K, for example, then there's 650k units sold in that period being 250k-300k the rest of the month which can be probable too.

Because we don't  know which days were better for Switch last year...., (if 5 days prior BF or after), we can not assume anything. If what i'm saying is correct, then every number given by Nintendo is correct.

But that's just my theory...



colafitte on 29 November 2018
SpokenTruth said:
colafitte said:

In fact Rol, to argument my theory why the numbers can be correct, I want to say that those numbers from VGC are from a different set of days. If those 5 days instead of 400k like you said are 300K, for example, then there's 650k units sold in that period being 250k-300k the rest of the month which can be probable too.

Because we don't  know which days were better for Switch last year...., (if 5 days prior BF or after), we can not assume anything. If what i'm saying is correct, then every number give by Nintendo is correct.

But that's just my theory...

OR...the whole damn 7.38 million extrapolated NPD figure is wrong.

You guys keep talking about the possibility that Nintendo is wrong while simultaneously accepting an extrapolated figure as gospel.

No, if you read what i said in a post earlier, i said that NPD leaks could be wrong too. In fact in another thread i said that NPD leaks number is a possibility to be wrong too. But what i'm saying is that with my theory EVERYTHING can be correct. NPD leaked numbers, 8'2M sold, 115% better than last year, best 5 days by any Nintendo console



quickrick on 29 November 2018
RolStoppable said:
quickrick said:

that's completely possible. mario came out at the end of october, and could have boosted switch sales. people on black friday are typically looking for deals, switch had none. besides the point, if 8.2 million was an error don't you think nintendo would informed anyone by now? IT IS PRETTY big NEWS and posted on almost every gaming website, and business websites as well. 

I point you to the previously mentioned PR mistake again. Nintendo didn't correct its Mario Kart 8 Deluxe PR, so it wasn't until the release of April 2017 NPD numbers that the mistake got confirmed.

there is night and day difference being slightly off on the attach ratio for mario kart, then giving  clear cut LTD number.



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colafitte on 29 November 2018

colafitte said:

In fact Rol, to argument my theory why the numbers can be correct, I want to say that those numbers from VGC are from a different set of days. If those 5 days instead of 400k like you said are 300K, for example, then there's 650k units sold in that period being 250k-300k the rest of the month which can be probable too.

Because we don't  know which days were better for Switch last year...., (if 5 days prior BF or after), we can not assume anything. If what i'm saying is correct, then every number given by Nintendo is correct.

But that's just my theory...

I ran the numbers with a base value of 300k in my original post and it created an odd weekly average for the weeks before Black Friday. I don't rule it out completely that the 8.2m LTD figure is correct, but maths and circumstances make it more likely that the figure is indeed incorrect. The circumstances are that Pokémon Let's Go sold through 1.5m copies quickly and that there was a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe bundle, so November 2018 being ~1m while November 2017 was 770-800k is too small of a year over year increase.

You can't prove any of that. One game that sells 1'5M of course can make a console sold better... If Switch sold 900-950k units until November 26 that's already around a 25% growth YOY and it lacks the rest of days of November. Besides, we don't know exactly how much stock that Mario Kart bundle had either. Like i said, by November 26 Switch could be around 950k too, and if you sum the rest of the days for November, Switch could be perfectly selling around 1'1M...that's a lot of growth YOY, more considering people are waiting for Smash next month.



quickrick on 29 November 2018
RolStoppable said:
quickrick said:

there is night and day difference being slightly off on the attach ratio for mario kart, then giving  clear cut LTD number.

Back then Nintendo's PR suggested Switch sales of 115k for April 2017 when in reality they were 280k. That's a lot more than being "slightly off," not to mention that this happened during the crucial launch period. Sales of 115k would have meant that Switch is dropping off to an also-ran while in reality Switch was going strong.

i'm not gonna compare official LTD numbers to attach ratio plus math to come up with hardware numbers. I would never argue that those numbers could easily be wrong.



Megiddo on 29 November 2018
RolStoppable said:
quickrick said:

there is night and day difference being slightly off on the attach ratio for mario kart, then giving  clear cut LTD number.

Back then Nintendo's PR suggested Switch sales of 115k for April 2017 when in reality they were 280k. That's a lot more than being "slightly off," not to mention that this happened during the crucial launch period. Sales of 115k would have meant that Switch is dropping off to an also-ran while in reality Switch was going strong.

Not that I have a time machine or anything, but isn't it pretty normal for there to be a big hefty restock for Nintendo consoles at the launch of a big game. I went back and read the PR and it looks like what happened was it suggested Switch sales of 115k for up to the date of MK8D's launch, and then the day it launched and the few days afterwards is when it got the extra 150k sales because there was a big restock in stores and because MK8D is a hugely successful software title. Or is that not the case?



colafitte on 29 November 2018
RolStoppable said:
colafitte said:

You can't prove any of that. One game that sells 1'5M of course can make a console sold better... If Switch sold 900-950k units until November 26 that's already around a 25% growth YOY and it lacks the rest of days of November. Besides, we don't know exactly how much stock that Mario Kart bundle had either. Like i said, by November 26 Switch could be around 950k too, and if you sum the rest of the days for November, Switch could be perfectly selling around 1'1M...that's a lot of growth YOY, more considering people are waiting for Smash next month.

You don't need to tell me that I can't prove any of that. That's why I am talking about probabilities and likelihoods all along.

If you believe all PR statements to be true, then the range for Switch is 820k-910k until November 26th, and there are only five days missing for the remaining tracking period. The estimate for the whole tracking period is closer to 1.0m than it is to 1.1m. That's not a lot of growth when the month had a big game release, a Black Friday bundle and anticipation for December, as opposed to none of that in the previous year. That's underwhelming.

I'd have to take a closer look at the growth in Japan and the UK, but at a glance the growth in those countries seems to outdo the USA if the 8.2m figure is to believed, and that's without Black Friday being anywhere close to as important in those two countries.

Well, that was my exact first reaction in this thread. 

What i was trying to point with the fact that you can't prove it, is that your theory still need more things to happen than mine. Yours need 8'2M to be wrong and/or 7'4M until November to be wrong and/or period of days being wrong and/or somehow Nintendo screwing the PR. With my theory everything can be right until proved otherwise with facts (for example, an official data of what Switch did last year in the same period or at least some kind of trustworthy leak).

And if Switch sells 1'0-1'1M and you find it disappointing...., well, Nintendo can disappoint, i don't see why not. Sony DEFINITIVELY is going to disappoint me with what they seem are doing with the stock of their bundles so....anything is possible. But it's true too, that if Switch goes from 750k to 1100k (rounding numbers, i don't want to be exact), is still a 45% growth YOY, that's fine with not a new main Pokemon game.



quickrick on 29 November 2018
RolStoppable said:
quickrick said:

i'm not gonna compare official LTD numbers to attach ratio plus math to come up with hardware numbers. I would never argue that those numbers could easily be wrong.

What do you argue then? That Nintendo's PR is bad at math, but they should be blindly trusted anyway?

There is just a huge difference. i won't try to come with hardware numbers based on attach ratios as they are just rounded numbers. they are not an official announcement of hardware numbers, i can easily see them not being exact or off, but hey well find out in 10 days or so.