It almost certainly can't. I can easily see it outselling the Wii or the Game Boy, to become Nintendo's most successful console, but it won't get much further than that.

@Jumpin, I agree with you, the big bulk of sales are done in a short period of time, Especially when a successor comes along. I personally think that the 3ds probably hurt nintendo more than it helped it. If you look at the Total sales of DS+3DS, it almost seems like the 3ds just took the place of the down curve of the DS, making me wonder if maybe the DS could have sold the amounts the 3ds sold if it was never released.

Looking at the graph makes you wonder if it could have been possible that the DS sold almost 230 million (ds+3ds)... If you look at the 3ds it doesn't have sharp falls because there was never a new handheld only console...

@trunkswd  mentioned something very interesting the other day, it was that the release of the kinect gave the Xbox 360 great legs. The 360 sold almost as much in years 6-10 than in years 1-5. Also the XboxOne got released 8 years after the 360, while the 3DS got released 6.5 years after the DS. This leads me to believe that if the successor of the Switch comes in 2024, it should give the switch a great fighting chance for reaching 150.

Even if it outsells the gameboy it wouldn't be Nintendo's best selling console. That is reserved for the Nintendo DS.

I think they won't do this because they want to sell remastered versions of Switch games on Switch successor 

Or the will decided to not release, let's say, Breath of The Wild remaster on Switch 2, to release it along with BOTW 2 as collection on Switch 3 instead. My point is just they are a company that likes to make their games scarce, so people will be more likely to buy it when they re-released that game 10 years in future 

Backwards compatibility depreciate their games  values or at least decreases the pool of potential buyers. As a consumer it sucks, but that's not much we can do about

About the drop on support in their consoles, I think it's just a matter of human resources. They need to keep a big influx of games to convince people to buy the new hardware. They are not able to keep the support to both hardwares. The point of buying a Nintendo hardware is 70% their exclusives that happens to be mainly first party, if Switch 2 shares the same library of Switch 1 then people will have no reason to buy Switch 2 until Switch 2 gets it's own exclusives in their second or third year of existence 

If people delays too much buying their new hardware it can make third party delay their support too, either for ports or for exclusives. I can see Switch 2 suffering from PS3 fate, with a slow start and with good sales by the end of its life, but far behind people's expectations 

I'm sure Nintendo will drop completely their own support for Switch 1 by at least a year before Switch 2 release. And I don't think it will hurt Switch sales as much as it did with Wii or DS, because Switch 1 already has a plethora of evergreen titles to hard-carry software and hardware sales, plus seems like 3rd party are really starting to release their own exclusives, specially japanese third parties

I see Switch 1 having a much better 3rd party support late-life than the Wii. First because the user base will very likely end being 40% higher and they aren't buying the switch for an specific game mechanic that 3rd parties aren't interested to develop for

Regardless of where the switch ends up, nintendo has to be pleased. The switch has been a massive success.

They don't need to hit 150m lifetime.  But the question is, "will they actually do it?"  They actually don't need to sell 100m lifetime.  If they discontinued the system now it will still have been a hugely profitable system.  But discontinuing the system now would be moronic, because they are throwing a ton of money away.

So the question is really, "assuming Nintendo is aiming to maximize profits, how much hardware will they actually sell?"  Right now 150m is a pretty easy goal for them to reach.  They don't have to worry about supporting multiple systems and they still haven't cut the price on their base model.  The real profits are in the software, but a bigger install base leads to more software sold.  They are about half way to 150m right now with no sign of slowing down.

They can still release remastered versions of games on a platform where the existing older version exists, no one’s stopping them, Steam does this all the time.

Why do you think values of games will drop? Why do you think potential buyers will decrease?

Nintendo rarely drops the price of their games. If they don’t want to, they don’t have to. Additionally, Switch already has massive price drop sales all the time. Dual support isn’t going to make this any worse.

And potential buyers of software won’t decrease, they’ll increase. It’s not like people will stop buying new games because they already have old ones, this hasn’t happened on any platform, ever.
Continued support of Switch 1 full steam ahead means the ecosystem is expanding. This is why game sales went up when new Android and iOS devices came out. For a Nintendo example: when improved models of GBA and 3DS came out - which, while not new generations, still serve a similar purpose by improving the capabilities of the original hardware: just through other means that don’t include a massive power boost. What we have observed, though, is drastic decrease in software sales as support drops off toward the end of a generation for exclusive support to a new generation with a smaller user base. That’s hurt Nintendo every generation, some much more than others. The slash an burn then replant strategy is often disastrous - as was the case with N64, Wii U, and GameCube.

The Human Resources stuff is only a problem with the way things are currently done. It splits the markets, usually in favour of the new generation while the prior generation goes underserved, and game sales underperform. That’s the point of Switch 2 expanding on Switch 1, to have a single game support two tiers rather than splitting the market, and selling to only part of the potential audience.

Lastly, exclusives aren’t the only reason people buy new hardware: Nintendo has proven this multiple times with GBA SP and DS Lite outselling the older models - again, they serve the same purpose as a new generation in those cases because of the substantial improvements over the previous hardware. People will buy Switch 2 because it’s new. People buy new PCs and phones all the time for this exact reason. New hardware that plays games better is a compelling reason to upgrade to the next generation, or entice new customers to buy into the ecosystem.

I Totally agree with this.

My point is 150M goal doesn't mean you commit suicide, if it does reach it while you stick to your plan (new hardware with great support) then it's totally fine, right now it looks certain it will pass Wii numbers and that's a great achievement once it happens, then I do think it still can reach 120-130M with an upgraded machine and a cut price on the base model and if it does happen then I think that's quiet an accomplishment

The point to gamers who already own the base version of the same games. If Switch had backwards compatibility with Wii U Mario Kart 8, Super Mario Bros U, Pikmin, Tropical Freeze and others would have a smaller cumulative sales. If I have the standard game who runs almost identically as the "remastered" version then I have no reason to buy it again. Of course new players are another thing entirely, but Switch is HIGHLY successful, I doubt Switch 2 userbase will have that of a big turnover in the userbase, indeed Switch 2 is likely to be composed mostly of Switch owners

Blocking Switch 1 game on Switch 2 games will obligate people to buy again if they want to keep playing Switch games on Switch 2, kinda shady but it is what it is. 

Need to point though that this is just a theory, Nintendo can surprise us and release a console with backwards compatibility, I personally will not complain lol

About Nintendo cutting the support for the old hardware, that's because Nintendo relies 90% on Nintendo studios to give some life to their hardware in their first years. One of reasons why Switch manage to do well was because Nintendo killed Wii U and take every team making games for Wii U to work for Switch instead. There is no point in making hybrid support. Phones and PCs have a very clear scheduled obsolescence, Windows and Android become unusable after years of update unless your hardware was beyond the standard in the industry. Console games are used only to play games and as long they still playing that game smoothly there is no point in changing your hardware, if it was such a issue no console would be their prime years 3 to 4 years after its release

Most customers just wait some few years to see the games that get actually releases in the new platform. For a Nintendo hardware that barely gets 3rd party in the first years delaying the exclusivity of their own games is pretty much signing the death certificate for the new hardware

Are there exceptions? Yes, but then you need to make a hardware that is so attractive that people will buy it regardless of its tame gamelist. That's what Nintendo tries to do when they introduce a new hardware mechanic, but sometimes it just doesn't work well. But overall I see the strategy of making a Switch 2 just a clone of Switch 1, making it backwards compatible and releasing cross-gen games is basically setting up Switch 2 to live its first 2 years in the shadow of original Switch. 

What you are mentioning here sounds similar to what happened with  the Gameboy and the Gameboy color, correct? I have been looking at those consoles and that strategy worked extremely well for the gameboy totals.