It's kinda funny that if John Lucas(?) wiould have done his 'crazy' 200M+ predictions, he would end up closer than a lot of the people in that thread.

Putting down hard numbers isn't as easy as playing higher or lower. I was convinced it would be higher than 3DS even taking into account the 'inevitable decline' (remember that) + smartphone effect but for me the Wii barrier was psychologically much, much bigger than 100M.

I also seem to remember Rol being the only one who accurately predicted the Wii cliff as opposed to the endless prophecies of 'the fad is about to end any day now' that went on relentlessly for 3-4 years just because they wanted a Switch Pr....er ....I mean a Wii HD.

There was a lot of salt back then from people who didn't like the "casual/kiddy" Wii outselling the "hardcore/cool" PS360, and hence a lot of wishful thinking that the Wii would disappear overnight after a year or two.

"Wii HD" was dreamed up partly because they wanted a successor in 2009 or 2010 to cut off Wii's legs so PS3/360 could catch up, and partly cos of cognitive dissonance as they were unable to accept that a non-HD system could outsell systems with graphics a generation better, and thus insisted a HD Wii was the only way for it to keep selling.

Switch Pro does generally fall into the same category, with a lot of its proponents being people who can't accept that Switch is succeeding without high end graphics.

110M is the bare minimum, only if Ninty decides to replace it early.
Staying on the market longer, I guess 120-130M.

Edit: I own no NS, maybe I could buy one in the future. If I'll ever have children, I'd buy more NS, if they liked it.

The Wii COULD have been much more successful, Nintendo pulled the plug on it by ending first party support, virtual console support, and slashing the marketing on it. Nintendo was trying to force their Wii base to stop using a Wii and get a Wii U, the only problem is Wii U sucked! So most fans skipped the generation and picked up the Switch as their next console instead.

It’s as though Nintendo took the generation off, creatively. From a hardware perspective, the sleek and sexy Wii was replaced by a rippling clunky chonk with a clumsy and lumbering UI and no killer app to speak of... not even an attempt at a killer app. So Nintendo dumped the Wii for nothing. The Wii, a console with gutted services, no VC support, and no new first party software, ended up being more successful in software sales during the WiiU generation than the Wii U. It’s easy to see how NOT cutting support for the Wii would have given Nintendo significantly higher sales all around.

One of my great hopes is that even when Nintendo comes out with a successor to the Switch, that Switch continues to receive full support with lower end versions of Switch 2 games. And that those Switch 1 versions can be upgraded immediately to Switch 2 settings upon purchase of and transfer to a Switch 2.

140-150m

You had me up until the last paragraph.

Once a new system comes out, I want Nintendo to make exclusives that take full advantage of it and give me a reason to upgrade. Provided they give the Switch til 2023 before replacing it, I'll be ready to move on and won't want future games held back by what by then will be nearly decade-old hardware.

I skipped Wiiu. 

Other than Zelda and Splatoon, which of Nintendo's big games would be held back by Switch?

My initial prediction for NS when it launched was 80m but it's clearly going to surpass that (will do that half way through next year) my guess now is between 110-120m as I can see them keeping it active until at least 2023.