And they probably were trolling AT THAT TIME, because Wii was such an abberation, no one could've accurately predicted the trajectory when it was flying off the shelves and out of stock for 3 years. Any notion that Wii would have an abrupt slow down in demand wasn't based on analytics, because there were none. Everyone was caught off guard by Wii in both it's peak and valley including Nintendo. Bad analogy for this particular discussion. 

Neglecting the early price cut the 3DS had in comparing its sales to the other consoles is not a fair way to assess sales particularly with respect to the Switch. None of the other 2 consoles you mention have Hand Held attributes like the Switch and the 3DS. Cost is an important factor for handheld sales. It is extremely likely (almost guaranteed) that the full sales potential of the Switch as a handheld is yet to be seen at its present sales price.

smh......

So talking abut possible future sale figures and debating reasoning behind the numbers on a sales site is now downplaying the future of a platform? And sorry who else will say anything other than the switch will sell 100M+? Nintendo fans? 

Believe me, Nintendo's IP's have very dedicated, different (and vocal) individual fanbases. You may think it won't make much of a difference but i beg to differ. Plus, there are "new" players joining a consoles' infrastructure all the time, at times making these fanbases bigger. It's also already been addressed here before but so far Nintendo have only really gone after the HC crowd with their strategy/price point. Next year i believe, with Animal Crossing and Pokemon (HH orientated titles), they will begin to go after the HH crowd. So, probably expect a price cut to get nearer mass market HH price point. Then from that time onwards their dream of having multiple owners per household will become more of a possibility, whilst all the while the userbase will be growing to 50m+. So, all in all i don't see Switch market penetration becoming a problem at all at 40m+ userbase.

Yes, i will look forward to it. (In a nice way!) Not sure it will break any records though, i'm pretty sure the Wii had more than 1 2.5m+ NPD. Smash will likely break records though, particularly the best ever opening month. (Not something to be sniffed at!)

I promised i will not talk anymore about WW sales for Switch but i want to clear out that i was discussing just TOTAL NUMBER SALES OF 3DS AGAINST NINTENDO SWITCH NOT BEING SO DIFFERENT. That's it. I added too that i prefered talking about asbolute succeses like total sales, because if we start talking about relative success like price points or discounts, then people have subjective opinions on the matter. You can say 3DS had a price cut and that's why it sold so much, so that's why you find Switch surprising and i can say that maybe, even if Nintendo cut the price of the Switch like the 3DS, the console would still selling about the same because Nintendo would not produce more, or as much more to compensate (this is not a thing that actually think, i was just proving a point) or that Switch did so good avoiding cut prices because its 1st party software was so good (and that won't last). You and I can't prove any of those things to be correct or not, but the number of sales are facts, that can't be discussed, and nobody here can deny the fact that at the end of the last quarter, official numbers for Switch and 3DS showed similar number of sales.

So my original post is still true: "I still don't know why people keep saying Switch is tracking way better than 3DS at the moment". What is true though, is that this is a NPD thread and Switch is indeed tracking better than 3ds in the same period of time in USA, but my post was directed to the discussion there was before about Switch lifetime sales worldwide and the comparison with previous Nintendo hardware, specifically 3DS.

Believe me, Nintendo's IP's have very dedicated, different (and vocal) individual fanbases. You may think it won't make much of a difference but i beg to differ. Plus, there are "new" players joining a consoles' infrastructure all the time, at times making these fanbases bigger. It's also already been addressed here before but so far Nintendo have only really gone after the HC crowd with their strategy/price point. Next year i believe, with Animal Crossing and Pokemon (HH orientated titles), they will begin to go after the HH crowd. So, probably expect a price cut to get nearer mass market HH price point. Then from that time onwards their dream of having multiple owners per household will become more of a possibility, whilst all the while the userbase will be growing to 50m+. So, all in all i don't see Switch market penetration becoming a problem at all at 40m+ userbase.

Let me try and prove my point.

According to nintendo like 22.8M NS has been sold.

Their top selling games are.....

1.  SMO - 12.1M
2. MK8 - 11.7M
3. LZBoTW - 10.2M
4. Splatoon2 - 7.4M
5. 1-2S, MTA, Arms, Kirby - all did around 2M

Of course there is some overlap between their major franchises just not as much as you think. As the Switch ages, those attach rates will go down. You really think you can use Ninyendo's biggest asset against the Switch being a huge seller? It really doesn't work that way. If the Switch is trending between the 3ds and Wii then likely it will end up somewhere around there. However, an argument can be made to it outlegging the Wii. It's actually trending along the lines of the Ps4 but i would be incredibly naive to expect it to have Ps4-like legs!

The point is that carring Switch to let's say 40-50M on Nintendo 1st party alone is one thing, to pass 80M without significant 3rd party support is another. And that is where the overlapping came in question.

Well, i guess none of us can predict the future and there are quite a few different permutations. I think you have a point but we will be a little wiser post-NPD. Being that the Switch is a hybrid it's probably hard to compare to any of Nintendo's past consoles. However, i'm looking at its momentum right now and imo it would take a spectacular collapse in sales for it not to reach at least 90m+.