Hardware Comparison Threads:

Yes, because any normal manufacturer would and have done a price cut in the year when their next console comes out .. (or at least most of them) and it is normal, it have to be done.. with PS4 getting price cut of 50 or even 100$ it would do at least 10-11M even without the covid .. and at least 12M with the covid, because it would be not only just cheaper but also would do more of a difference between it and the PS5 which starts at 399$ for the digital one .. and also other factor that could help was the stock .. in the last couple of months sony did not produce and sent out as much PS4 units as it was needed

I always was bad at predictions but let's try again:
Switch - 20.5m
PS4 - 10.5m
Xbox One - 3.2m

Next-gen consoles is a tough one as nothing is really known about them yet to make a certain prediction, so it's just a wild guess from my side:
PS5 - 5m
XBSX - 3m

Well, I guess there was a thread on this here at VGC. And it proves a point I made in another thread: nobody expected the Switch to sell as well as it did in 2020. Except for two outliers, one of which involved a very broad range of estimates (the center point on the range was 21.5M, with the range extending ±3.5M from that), the average prediction for the Switch for 2020 in this thread was around 20-21M, and the better of those two outliers still fell short. Related to this, the NPD-specific prediction thread on Era for 2020 as a whole had predictions for the U.S. that were all below 7M, but usually above 6M; the actual number was 30.4% better than the most generous prediction, and over 40% better than the average of all the predictions. And for the professionals, I know at least Matt Piscatella wasn't expecting the Switch to be up.

The impacts of the pandemic on consumer spending were massive. There was a huge increase in spending on at-home entertainment, obviously including video games, and, at least in the U.S., that spending was aided by stimulus checks. Lots of people tried to argue against that fact or at least downplay its effects (mainly regarding the Switch), but, well, there you have it. The Switch beat the average prediction by 33-40%. When these predictions were made, every other variable (Animal Crossing, potential new models or price cuts, residual effects from the Lite, etc.) was known and accounted for except one: COVID-19. In January 2020, nobody was expecting that a disease that was still in the background (the first confirmed cases in the U.S. & Europe weren't until late January) would have become serious enough by March to result in a lockdown, with places like movie theaters and bowling alleys and restaurants being closed for protracted periods of time. But because of the pandemic and its effects on spending, every console unexpectedly over-performed, at least as long as supply was able to sustain it (the PS4 & XBO declined rapidly once stock started to run out).

Had 2020 been a normal year, the Switch would have sold a lot less than it did. Meanwhile, the PS4 & XBO would have continued to be way down YoY during the spring just as they were in January & February, though they'd almost certainly have a better second half of the year than what they actually had. Hard to say if they would have sold better overall for the year as a whole, though.

First off, I actually was given grief by some people for suggesting the pandemic was the primary driver of the Switch's sales growth in 2020. I had at least a couple of people try to flat out deny that fact outright and state that Animal Crossing was the primary driver. What little evidence that was offered failed to establish that AC was the primary driver, and all their commentary just came across as a post hoc means of rationalizing away the pandemic's effects, presumably because the existence of the "COVID bump" made it seem like the Switch somehow didn't "earn" its sales in 2020 on its own merits. Most serious commentators and analysts agree that COVID was the primary driver of increased demand last year, and it seems the only people insisting on arguing otherwise were random "platform partisans" on the internet who don't like the idea of seeing an asterisk next to the record of their favorite systems.

And I haven't even touched on Japan and Europe yet. The Switch is currently running an absolutely massive deficit against the DS in Japan, and it's unlikely to make up for it as it will have to have post-Year 4 sales far, far beyond any other system in history in that country (over 14.6M from now onward, to be exact; the current record is only about half that). In Europe, the Switch isn't even close to the halfway point of what the DS and PS2 sold.

For the Switch to even have a chance at matching the DS globally or even in any specific region it will need to both A) benefit from a protracted recovery from the pandemic, and B) require that Nintendo support it in late life as well as Sony does their systems. Anything short of that I think will result in it failing to be a legitimate contender for the new #1 spot, and even if both things happen the Switch could still fall well short of the DS.

Beating the 360 & PS2 in U.S. is within the realm of possibility. Beating the DS in any one of the major markets or the PS2 globally is not. The idea that the Switch has a realistic shot at beating the DS is beyond reasonable optimism, and assumes future sales that are well beyond the norm based on an assumption of long-term continuation of last year's sales figures, even though those were dependent on circumstances that were most definitely not normal. 120-130M globally seems to the be the most likely final lifetime total globally, with an NA/JP/EU/ROW split of 40%/22%/23%/15%. Anything above this I would consider to be "optimistic" while anything below it I would consider to be "pessimistic." But that's just me.

@Bolded. In the U.S. & Japan, maybe. In Europe... not so much. Let's say the Switch ends up at around 45M in the U.S. and about 28-29M (halfway between the DS and 3DS) in Japan. In just those two countries, that would give the Switch a surplus over the PS4 of around 28M, ±0.5M. That's definitely a lot. However, the Switch has been tracking well behind the PS4 in Europe. While the PS4 is on track to sell over 50M units in Europe, not too much less than what the DS & PS2 sold, the Switch is going to fall well short of that. Assuming Europe stays about proportional to Japan, Switch sales in the region could end at around 30-32M. That would be a roughly 20M deficit against the PS4 in the region. If the Switch's U.S.+JP surplus is 28M, that Europe deficit would result in a net surplus of only around 8M. If rest-of-world sales for the Switch fall a few million units short of the Switch, that could negate even more of that US+JP surplus.

So, 125-130M is definitely possible, and is what I'm going with for right now. I could totally see NA/JP/Europe/RoW regional split of, say, 50M/28M/32M/15M. The lower end of the 120M range would be a worst-case scenario, and I don't see the Switch failing to at least match the PS4 globally (within a <2% margin), but I don't see it blowing away the PS4 by 20M+, either.