Thinking that part of Animal Crossing demographics purchase video games and consoles the same way that COD/FIFA players do is kinda weird.

Historically you can look at the Wii. Wii Sports and Wii Fit sold a lot of consoles and video games to demographics not associated with video gaming, it's kinda the same with Animal Crossing since Microsoft, Sony and PC focused studios are largely devoted to genres and games targetting very narrow demographics. Games that aren't marketed to women, older people, or kids. When looking at Animal Crossing, what exactly are the alternatives on the market? Girl and women gamers have been completely ignored simply because large pubs decided a long time ago that they wouldn't pay to purchase a console. This is why I think looking at past trends is a bit of a waste of time, even the audience for Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart 8, Zelda are all very different compared to Animal Crossing.

Also, no one can really deny that compared to prior entries social media has helped the game explode in popularity it's 3rd and 5th in recent NPD months and has over 50% digital attach rate in the West meaning that we are seeing about 1/2 of the real story in the NPD discussion. To deny that it's a pretty unprecedented situation that was obviously aided by COVID is definitely not what I aiming at but at the same time not every game can go out and sell over 20 million copies World Wide in four months.

Just look at its sales in places like Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, France, Spain in most of those markets it was in 2nd place in July - this is 3 months after it's launch.
I think some are greatly underestimating the impacts of this type of software long term, similarly to how Ring Fit is being underestimated as a hardware driver nearly a year after it's release. I have said previously that when looking at 2020, we should remember where gaming was during the 2007 Financial Crash and the years that followed. Animal Crossing is great escapism for boys, girls, teenagers, women, men, and even the elderly. While Ring Fit Adventure still hasn't been fully marketed by Nintendo, these two franchises are enough to ensure software and hardware-wise Nintendo ends up the top company this holiday regardless of what Sony and Microsoft do. And this will be the case in a lot of the biggest video game markets in the World including the US.

So while arguments about additional money during a financial crisis do come-up, I do have a question to everyone - which console will be the cheapest tp purchase this holiday? Will consumers hit by recisions and COVID purchase the latest AAA console with $70 AAA games or will they choose something less expensive that fits into different types of lifestyles and caters to all types of people?
2020 will be another record-breaking year in the video game industry and Nintendo, Animal Crossing & Ring Fit Adventure could very well be the top three stories at the end of the day.

New Horizon / Ring Fit NPD Position

• March: #1 / n/a
• April: #3 / n/a
• May: #3 / #835
• June: #3 / #5
• July: #5 / #6

There is one weird discrepancy I just noticed in June the NPD Report said Ring Fit is at #7 but the latest tweet for July it had the previous month as Ring Fit at #5 place. This further strengthens the argument as the historic precedent from the Wii repeating itself. And actually Nintendo has managed to have two very popular games that appeal to the widest possible demographic at the same time. We haven't even seen Ring Fit's actual potential as Nintendo has barely advertised it at the level they could if they were confident they could manufacture enough copies. This will greatly change this holiday, and like I've theorized already there will be major updates for the two games to bring back attention to them prior to or during December. 

What's with the attitude?

Shadow contributes greatly to this site with insightful historical and visual data coupled with his personal thoughts and analyzes on future sales. You're free to disagree but why the need to lable his thoughts as "wrong"?

Do we have all numbers for this year for NSW? Or how much it is at? Last year sold 6.4mil

I already provided multiple pieces of evidence for how the Switch is throwing every historical patten out the window, making much of the historical data you provide null and void. I'm going to repeat my points so you know what exact evidence I was referring to that shows the historical data is mostly irrelevant when forecasting Switch sales.

-For one thing, we've never seen an exclusive title be as explosive and huge as Animal Crossing, ever, we have never seen an exclusive game sell an insane 22 Million Units in only 3 months. Animal Crossing Sales are literally unprecedented. So attempting to determine Switch sales based on historical data with games that were no where near as big as Animal Crossing is illogical. Cause Animal Crossing is in a whole other league of it's own when it comes to how huge it is. 

-Also, like I said we've never seen a Nintendo System have sales this high along with software sales so high. Despite only being 3 years in with 60M sold the Switch already surpassed the DS's Hardware/Software attach rate, and its only going to increase which is typical for it to happen. And the Switch is also on pace to have a higher hardware/software attach rate than the Wii. While the Wii had a software attach rate of 9, Nintendo included Wii Sports, a bundled game in that so really the attach rate is only 8. The Switch is already at 6.5 3 years in and will only increase going forward once the library gets stronger and people have more time to purchase more games. Switch is on pace to beat the Wii in attach rate even when you include Wii Sports. Plus we've seen Nintendo franchises sell record highs on the Switch, Smash, 3DMario, Zelda, Pokemon, AC, Mario Party and more are blowing past their older counterparts when it comes to sales. What all this means is that the Switch's main audience is far more dedicated towards Nintendo and buying Nintendo related products solely for the games. Like I said before, it's not just a bunch of soccer moms who want to try out Wii Sports or Brain Age, these are people who desperately want to play Nintendo games. What this means is that using historical data of systems filled with far more casuals who weren't as interested in Nintendo games to determine Switch's  current sales is illogical. Since the Switch is appealing to a more dedicated audience that's more likely to get hype over every Nintendo game.

It leaves the question open on Wii games. The Wii sold out it's stock as soon as it came in for years - but without the right games, it couldn't have done so. And while I don't have hard data to back this up due to the aforementioned stock situation, I'm pretty sure several games like Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit had a long-lasting sales boost effect, and one which would have been visible had the Wii been able to sell that much.

Also, I think Agente is partly right. the Lite did the heavy lifting, but again, without great games to go along, the Lite boost wouldn't have lasted that long. And NSMB certainly did help push the sales over an extended period of time.

I get that they're both highly successful Nintendo systems, but the frequent comparing of Switch and Wii tends to ignores that they are very. very different systems, in everything from their demographic appeal to their circumstances.

There's no reason for them to follow the same curve just because they're both gaming systems made by the same company.

DS sales trajectory exploded for a combination of new desirable hardware revision and a few strong selling software that drove the userbase growth (not just NSMB).
Be aware that Nintendo quickly phased out the OG DS, to the point that in the fiscal year that run between April 2006 and March 2007 they only shipped a measly 220K of OG DS consoles for the whole Americas.
To understand what a strong seller NSMB was on DS just think how it sold >11M in US alone.

Only January was down YoY.

And that was due to NSMBUD coming out in January 2019 and nothing comparable in January 2020. And even then, the difference was pretty small.

Using historical data can only go so far because such data can't determine future context, shifts and disruptions a prime example of this is in finance as historical data wouldn't have been able to tell about decentralized finance and how the performance of crypto-currencies would go. Switch is a hybrid for a start so it's in two markets with a monopoly on one of them immediately that makes comparing data to it a wonky task because DS was only selling to one market as was Wii, Switch may share some of the same reasons people bought the former two for but has some key ones of its one that they don't have. Going by historical data the Wii itself shouldn't have sold but the data couldn't factor in disruption brought by the blue ocean strategy, Switch itself has a position which isn't like any prior device because it's primary trait is tailoring itself to what ever the buyers gaming habits are whether portable, home or a mixture so really the data it is generating is more for itself and future hybrid devices while historical data can only vaguely be used for it.

Pandemic may have helped in April and May but to attribute it as the main factor in sales is incorrect as even with many countries out of lock down after those two months NS remains up YOY and AC has for the good part of a year been touted as a major seller before release it sells to people who even don't play anything else in gaming hence why we saw celebs calling for it and see stories of elderly people putting in thousands of hours into the game I'd say yes AC has a big role in sales. If you look back at the NS' momentum and it's main software flagships they've all reached levels that other games struggle to even touch BOTW for example had over 100% attach rate for two months in the launch window more people owned the NS version than the platform because they couldn't manufacture it fast enough.