I believe I did as recently as late last year suggested the possibility that 2019 could be the Switch's peak year in the U.S., considering that, except for the DS, no Nintendo system has ever peaked past its third full year in the U.S. (which I consider 2017 to be a full year for the Switch since its launch week/month makes up for the first eight weeks of the year). I know I did back in the December NPD thread point out that the Switch was exhibiting the telltale signs of cresting its peak, with the system first experiencing appreciable YoY growth in Q4 2018, then said growth going on a downward trend. Without exception, when a Nintendo system saw those kinds of declines in quarterly YoY growth, they soon moved into YoY declines in quarterly sales and never recovered, meaning they passed their peaks. We never saw steady declines in YoY growth in Nintendo systems followed by a sudden, massive reversal of course.

I viewed January and February as mostly likely confirming my hypothesis that 2019 may have been the peak year as they were both down YoY from 2019. Now, the Jan.+Feb. period was down only by a modest 6.6%, and March was almost certainly going to make up for it and produce one last quarter of YoY growth due to AC, but generally I expected the overall trend for this year to continue to be YoY declines. The anomalous growth in all hardware sales due to COVID-19 threw those predictions out the window, with the Switch being up a staggering 140% in Q2 (the PS4 & XBO were up 51.3% and 68.6% in Q2, respectively, nearly all of that due to the big initial spike in April).

With the Switch being up some 1.75M units YTD so far, there's now pretty much zero chance that 2020 won't be peak year. The Switch would have to sell no more than about 2.7M for the Aug.-Dec. period just for 2020 to be flat, and that would require YoY drops that are too large to be plausible (at least -39%). Even assuming more modest YoY drops for the Aug.-Dec. period as a whole (say, -15%), we should expect no more than half of the current surplus over last year to be depleted.

But had COVID never been a thing, I do believe we would have seen the Switch be down for at least the May-July period (April by itself may have been up somewhat YoY as a residual effect of AC), and that whatever net gains over 2019 that AC may have produced for the year so far would have been completely erased and then some before year's end. I think the Switch may have sold only 6-6.5M units this year had it not been for COVID-19. Unfortunately, there's no way to test this since I'm not Rick Sanchez and can't simply hop to an alternate 2020 where the only difference was no coronavirus outbreak. We're stuck with our own reality where COVID-19 affected everything, including spending habits. Nobody expected people to have an extra $1200 in their pockets this spring (in addition to their tax refunds for those that had one), and, to my knowledge, nobody expected April and Q2 in general to have such a massive increase over last year.

Actually, Amazon ranks don't prove a thing. For example, by your rationale, FF7 Remake was the primary driver for PS4 sales in April since it was the #1 game. And besides, popular Nintendo games tend to be perennial best-sellers on Amazon (and the NPD charts, for that matter; MK8D, BotW, Smash, and NSMBUD all made the Top 20 last month). Just because a game manages to stick around in the best-sellers charts doesn't mean it's still moving any significant amount of hardware. We already know from the past 20 years at least of NPD sales data that an individual game does not produce any increases in hardware sales lasting any more than about a month or two after release. Also, numbered rankings are not measures of absolute sales volume. You never know how many copies separate the #2 game of the month from the #3 game of the month unless you have the actual sales figures.

Oh, and if you're expecting AC to still keep moving substantial amounts of hardware this holiday, you're expecting something that has literally never happened, ever. Again, it's already been established that major system-selling software never produces such long-term gains in hardware sales. The odds that AC is still pushing this amount of hardware by itself five months after launch is beyond unprecedented, and therefore highly unlikely. The odds that it will continue doing so out to December is nil.

Again:

Obviously, AC had a big impact in March. While there was probably somewhat of a pre-stimulus early-quarantine "better get it while the getting is good" rush (hence the uptick in PS4 & XBO sales in March after two months of big drops), the bulk of March's increases were clearly because of AC. April, however, showed a much, much smaller disparity in YoY changes. While AC likely had a residual effect in April (something at least a few major system-sellers have done in their second month), if the PS4 & XBO are any indication the bulk of the YoY increase in Switch sales in April was due to people getting their stimulus checks. While the YoY increases for the Switch tapered off more slowly than those of the PS4 & XBO, that could just as easily be chalked up to it being a younger, more popular, and thus better-stocked system. Once again, no game has ever had the kind of impact on hardware sales like what some are attributing to AC. Attributing something so unprecedented to a game while we are at the same time living in a time where we're dealing with something else unprecedented impacting the whole market is to me something that requires some damn good evidence. I've yet to see any good evidence that proves that the post-March boosts are primarily because of AC even though the PS4 & XBO had boosts that were clearly COVID-induced bumps. The Switch doesn't exist in a vacuum, and, especially given the nature of this year, has to be assessed in the broader context of the whole hardware market.

Again:

Obviously, AC had a big impact in March. While there was probably somewhat of a pre-stimulus early-quarantine "better get it while the getting is good" rush (hence the uptick in PS4 & XBO sales in March after two months of big drops), the bulk of March's increases were clearly because of AC. April, however, showed a much, much smaller disparity in YoY changes. While AC likely had a residual effect in April (something at least a few major system-sellers have done in their second month), if the PS4 & XBO are any indication the bulk of the YoY increase in Switch sales in April was due to people getting their stimulus checks. While the YoY increases for the Switch tapered off more slowly than those of the PS4 & XBO, that could just as easily be chalked up to it being a younger, more popular, and thus better-stocked system. Once again, no game has ever had the kind of impact on hardware sales like what some are attributing to AC. Attributing something so unprecedented to a game while we are at the same time living in a time where we're dealing with something else unprecedented impacting the whole market is to me something that requires some damn good evidence. I've yet to see any good evidence that proves that the post-March boosts are primarily because of AC even though the PS4 & XBO had boosts that were clearly COVID-induced bumps. The Switch doesn't exist in a vacuum, and, especially given the nature of this year, has to be assessed in the broader context of the whole hardware market.

It was the DS Lite that caused DS sales to explode, not NSMB, which came out the previous month in the U.S. and did nothing for sales. In Japan, NSMB was released a number of weeks after the DS Lite. The Lite clearly was the primary driver of sales growth in Japan as well, and while NSMB did provide an additional boost, it was only for like a week or two.

If you're going to assert "the Switch is pretty much throwing every past historical pattern out the window at this point," well, I invite you to provide your evidence that it totally subverting all the "rules of sales." Be specific, and cite specific data points.

As for the Game Boy, the late 90s spike was because of the Game Boy Color, which, while technically and officially an upgraded Game Boy, was treated as an entirely new system by the market.

While I have never been able to find monthly data for the Game Boy in the U.S., I was able to get hold of yearly sales data some years back (might have been from GAF), and while the Game Boy sold 2.9M units in 1998, up from 2.1M in 1997, most if not all of that came from the Color, which NPD tracked separately, and they had it at ~990k for 1998. The GBC was released in November 1998, two months after Pokemon R&B. It wasn't until 1999 that the full effects of the GBC were felt, with the Game Boy selling 7.2M units that year, nearly 90% of which was from the Color. Without more granular (i.e., monthly) sales data, we cannot tell for sure what happened in 1998. Pokemon was a brand new and unproven franchise in the U.S., so it may not have been an immediate system-seller. We don't know what it sold in September (the month Pokemon came out) or in November (the month the Color came out), or for the rest of months of that year, for that matter. Hell, we don't even know exactly how many copies Pokemon sold that year. But we do know that new hardware models often have major stimulative effects on hardware sales, and when they do it always far outstrips the ability of individual games to move hardware.

Pokemon R&G came out in Japan in 1996, but because of the lack of sales data we cannot determine what effects it had when it was released. But the GB Color did provide a boost to Game Boy sales, which suggests that the Color, being a new and qualitatively better model, was also the primary booster of sales in the U.S.

First off, historical sales data is extremely important in sales discussion. It allows us to see what does and doesn't affect sales and how they affect sales, such as demonstrating that price cuts often cause rises in hardware, for example. So don't be dismissive of its importance. While no two systems have the same-shaped sales curves and therefore they aren't wholly "dictated by past patterns," that doesn't mean that we can't determine what does and does not have an affect on hardware sales, and what those effects typically are.

Going back to the Switch, others are assuming something that has literally never happened before when another explanation already exists, one that is far more plausible and is something the data actually suggests is true. When faced with two potential answers to the "What's the primary cause of the increase in Switch sales?" question, I choose the more plausible of the two. AC just happened to launch at the same time a massive pandemic hit, and so we have to look at the data in a broader context to see which factor was the primary or sole factor.

These are the facts as we know them:

• NPD data consistently shows that with major system-selling software, the vast majority of people who bought the system just for that game did so within the first month or two. There is a spike in HW sales growth in the first month when sales of the game are at their highest, then a drop in HW sales the next month, and then sales return to something resembling the previous baseline (if it's released early enough in the year to attain a baseline prior to the holidays.
• As has been reported on by multiple media outlets, people started to spend more on at-home entertainment after the start of the pandemic-induced quarantines. This increased spending on at-home entertainment obviously includes video games.
• NPD data consistently shows that when consumers are given substantial enough windfalls that are (mostly) across the board, it results in increased spending on console hardware. This is usually the case in February and, to a lesser extent, March because of tax refunds.
• There is sufficient evidence that, beginning in April, there were stimulus-induced increases in spending on game consoles, which is consistent with the previous two points. Namely, NPD data shows a 177% YoY increase in PS4 sales and a 210% YoY increase in XBO sales in April along with the 256% increase in Switch sales. Furthermore, weekly average PS4 & XBO sales in April increased 62.6% and 49%, respectively, from March. Overall, it was the largest April to date for the PS4 & XBO, the second-largest non-holiday month for the PS4 to date (after Sept. 2014), and tied for the largest non-holiday month to date for the XBO. It was also the best April ever by for combined same-gen PlayStation + Xbox sales with 740k units sold, despite coming near the end of the generation where sales had been down considerably from their peak (the previous record holder was April 2011, where the PS3 & 360 sold a combined 501k), and in terms of weekly average sales was the fourth-largest non-holiday month for combined same-gen PS+Xbox sales in the past decade, bested only by Feb. 2010, Feb. 2011, & Feb. 2012.
• NPD data also shows an across-the-board pre-stimulus acceleration in sales. The PS4 & XBO were both up about 25% YoY in March, but even more notable is how much March was up from February. March is almost always down from February, at least in terms of weekly averages (it is a 5-week sales period), but this year we saw anomalously high growth from February. The XBO was up 70% and the PS4 was up 80%. The Switch was up 140%, substantially higher than either the PS4 or XBO, so, like the YoY increases, that suggests that Animal Crossing was likely doing much if not most of the work in March, but that a general increase in spending on consoles at the start of quarantine was a significant factor. The only other times we saw March's weekly average being substantially up from February's was the Wii in 2008, the 360 in 2006, and the PS2 in 2001. With the Wii, that was most likely because of SSB Brawl, while with the 360 & PS2 that was almost certainly due to both systems finally getting restocks after being severely supply-constrained in their first few months.

The only thing "unprecedented" this year is the pandemic and the resultant stimulus, the largest such stimulus to date ($1200 at minimum, vs. $300 for the previous stimulus checks we got in the 00s). But we do know that putting a big check in people's pockets gets them to spend more, especially on big-ticket items like game consoles, something that's going to be in increased demand because away-from-home options have been extremely limited (no movie theaters, amusement parks, etc.). It's something we have real proof for.

If you believe that the surplus in Switch sales for the April-July period is mostly due to people who wanted one to play AC and not due to the general COVID-19-/stimulus-induced increase in spending on at-home entertainment, and/or that AC (or even the Switch in general) is setting an entirely new precedent all by itself, and/or a single game can keep producing significant YoY increases in hardware sales five months after its release, then the burden of proof is on you to prove those things. I've provided my arguments and my data, and until I'm provided with some real counter-arguments based not on assertions but on actual data (figures, surveys... something... and I've already shown that Amazon rankings can be ruled out) this is the last time I will contribute to this conversation. I've already put too much time into arguing my points as it is.

I rest my case.

Again:

Obviously, AC had a big impact in March. While there was probably somewhat of a pre-stimulus early-quarantine "better get it while the getting is good" rush (hence the uptick in PS4 & XBO sales in March after two months of big drops), the bulk of March's increases were clearly because of AC. April, however, showed a much, much smaller disparity in YoY changes. While AC likely had a residual effect in April (something at least a few major system-sellers have done in their second month), if the PS4 & XBO are any indication the bulk of the YoY increase in Switch sales in April was due to people getting their stimulus checks. While the YoY increases for the Switch tapered off more slowly than those of the PS4 & XBO, that could just as easily be chalked up to it being a younger, more popular, and thus better-stocked system. Once again, no game has ever had the kind of impact on hardware sales like what some are attributing to AC. Attributing something so unprecedented to a game while we are at the same time living in a time where we're dealing with something else unprecedented impacting the whole market is to me something that requires some damn good evidence. I've yet to see any good evidence that proves that the post-March boosts are primarily because of AC even though the PS4 & XBO had boosts that were clearly COVID-induced bumps. The Switch doesn't exist in a vacuum, and, especially given the nature of this year, has to be assessed in the broader context of the whole hardware market.

I did say I was leaving, but since this can be easily dispensed of, so it shouldn't take me more than a couple of minutes:

While it's not marked, NSMB was released on May 15, 2006 in North America. It had half a month to boost sales. It did squat, as you can plainly see. Meanwhile, the release of the DS Lite coincides with a huge bump in all regions.

Conclusion: New Super Mario Bros. was not the primary factor behind the DS sales growth in 2006. It was a minor factor in Japan, and a non-factor in the U.S.

Check and mate.

Actually look at the data from now on.w

Could it not be a mixture? Based on your data I think covid is the main reason but AC has caused a significant long term boost in Japan so maybe it could also be causing a long term boost elsewhere too though on a much smaller scale since AC is most popular in Japan. Either way whatever boost it did cause is probably over now outside of Japan or at least mostly over.

Again:

Obviously, AC had a big impact in March. While there was probably somewhat of a pre-stimulus early-quarantine "better get it while the getting is good" rush (hence the uptick in PS4 & XBO sales in March after two months of big drops), the bulk of March's increases were clearly because of AC. April, however, showed a much, much smaller disparity in YoY changes. While AC likely had a residual effect in April (something at least a few major system-sellers have done in their second month), if the PS4 & XBO are any indication the bulk of the YoY increase in Switch sales in April was due to people getting their stimulus checks. While the YoY increases for the Switch tapered off more slowly than those of the PS4 & XBO, that could just as easily be chalked up to it being a younger, more popular, and thus better-stocked system. Once again, no game has ever had the kind of impact on hardware sales like what some are attributing to AC. Attributing something so unprecedented to a game while we are at the same time living in a time where we're dealing with something else unprecedented impacting the whole market is to me something that requires some damn good evidence. I've yet to see any good evidence that proves that the post-March boosts are primarily because of AC even though the PS4 & XBO had boosts that were clearly COVID-induced bumps. The Switch doesn't exist in a vacuum, and, especially given the nature of this year, has to be assessed in the broader context of the whole hardware market.