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Forums - Sales Discussion - December NPD 2020: Switch 2.1 million, PS5 800K, XBS 700K

The_Liquid_Laser on 21 January 2021
PDiddy said:

From source on ERA:
Dec:
Switch: ~2.1m
PS5: ~0.8m
XS: ~0.7m

Nov:
Switch: 1,36m
PS5: 1.14m
XS: ~0.8m

Top 5 retail titles (units):
Dec:
Cyberpunk 2077: ~1.2m
CoD: Black Ops: ~1.1m
NBA 2K21: ~0.8m
Animal Crossing: ~0.7m
Mario Kart: ~0.6m

Nov:
CoD: Black Ops: ~1.1m
AC Valhalla: ~0.7m
Miles Morales: ~0.7m
NBA 2K21: ~0.4m
Hyrule Warriors: ~0.3m

It's very nice to get numbers of some sort.  CoD was the title that clearly dominated the holidays.  I know it always does well, but I like to see the actual numbers and like comparisons.  These are all physical units, so it actually is clear just how well it did even on a physical only basis.  Mario Kart is also incredible IMO, because it can still sell 600k in one month even though its basically a 3.5 year old port of a 6.5 year old game.  Hyrule Warriors did well for a musou game, but it clearly was no replacement for a normal holiday title from Nintendo.



curl-6 bet me that PS5 + X|S sales would reach 56m before year end 2023 and he was right.
My Bet With curl-6

My Threads:
Master Thread, Game of the Year/Decade
Switch Will Be #1 All Time
Zelda Will Outsell Mario (Achieved)
How Much Will MH Rise sell?
My Bet With Metallox

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xMetroid on 21 January 2021

How did AoC sell only 300k in the US in 2 weeks ?



brute on 21 January 2021
Marth said:
xMetroid said:

How did AoC sell only 300k in the US in 2 weeks ?

Its a very good result for a Warriors game. Some people were getting way ahead of themselves with their expectations.

But it was announced to have shipped 3 million first week I believe.

That means they way overshipped worldwide or digital attach rate is high 



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zorg1000 on 21 January 2021
brute said:
Marth said:

Its a very good result for a Warriors game. Some people were getting way ahead of themselves with their expectations.

But it was announced to have shipped 3 million first week I believe.

That means they way overshipped worldwide or digital attach rate is high 

A combination of digital sales being strong and the 3 million shipment was meant to last through the holidays.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

Ryng on 31 January 2021

i think 40 million for Switch in USA is in the bag, the real challenge is 50 million.



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The_Liquid_Laser on 31 January 2021
Shadow1980 said:

And as for beating the DS, forget about it. The Switch's 2020 was an anomalous year, and shouldn't automatically be taken as any indication that it will set any sort of new records in terms of absolute numbers for post-Year 4 sales.

And it doesn't need to set any new records! It's doing perfectly fine. In fact, it's doing better than fine. It's doing great. It is absolutely no slight against the system if it sells "only", say, 42M instead of 47M or 50M or 55M. 

The DS is currently the top seller in the US, but it's perfectly fine if the Switch outsells it.  In fact the DS has done better than fine.  It's done great.  It is absolutely no slight against the system if the Switch outsells it.



curl-6 bet me that PS5 + X|S sales would reach 56m before year end 2023 and he was right.
My Bet With curl-6

My Threads:
Master Thread, Game of the Year/Decade
Switch Will Be #1 All Time
Zelda Will Outsell Mario (Achieved)
How Much Will MH Rise sell?
My Bet With Metallox

The_Liquid_Laser on 01 February 2021
Shadow1980 said:
The_Liquid_Laser said:

The DS is currently the top seller in the US, but it's perfectly fine if the Switch outsells it.  In fact the DS has done better than fine.  It's done great.  It is absolutely no slight against the system if the Switch outsells it.

Your snark is misplaced. In the past, people have accused me of downplaying the Switch's success or otherwise being too negative regarding the system, all for daring to suggest things like that it probably won't become the new #1 system of all time, as if it failing to do so would be a disappointment or something. My commentary was a preemptive rebuttal to anyone who would again suggest that I'm somehow insufficiently bullish on the Switch.

I do think you are still insufficiently bullish on Switch.  It's currently selling about even with the DS and yet you say the chance of it outselling the DS is "nil".  That is overly pessimistic.  If a system sold like that once, then it definitely has a chance of selling like that again.  The DS's legs from here on aren't even terribly impressive.  It had another 1-2 good years and then sales plummeted hard.  You really think Switch has no chance of outselling DS?  Really?

About a year ago, you were saying that Switch peaked in 2019 and it would decline in 2020.  Instead, Switch sales skyrocketed in 2020.  You were overly pessimistic in the past.  You weren't even remotely close.  Perhaps, you still are overly pessimistic?  You might want to consider that.



curl-6 bet me that PS5 + X|S sales would reach 56m before year end 2023 and he was right.
My Bet With curl-6

My Threads:
Master Thread, Game of the Year/Decade
Switch Will Be #1 All Time
Zelda Will Outsell Mario (Achieved)
How Much Will MH Rise sell?
My Bet With Metallox

noshten on 01 February 2021

Switch just wrapped I think the 5th best year all time without a big holiday game, at full price - everything they shipped seems to have already been sold to end-customers, in the US people will get additional checks and COVID will continue. Bowser's Fury & Monster Hunter Rise are two of the biggest games launching during the first half of the year, there is a pretty long list of other third party games hitting the system before the end of the summer including exclusives like Olive Town, Bravely Default 2, SMTV, Disgaea 6 - meanwhile I don't really know any exclusives on the PS5 and XSX especially while both console makers just struggled to supply during the peak sales months of the year... Mindshare is key and I think Bowser's Fury and Rise will maintain momentum heading into the second half of the year, in large part to other software launches. We don't know much about anything beyond May from Nintendo but hopefully Breath of the Wild 2, new Pokemon and Bayonetta 3 finally launch. 



Farsala on 05 February 2021
RolStoppable said:
Shadow1980 said:

@RolStoppable. I do agree that Animal Crossing would still be a strong system-seller even had COVID not been a thing. However, I don't think it could have pushed the Switch to anything significantly over 7M without the pandemic & stimulus to aid it. Comparing YoY and, perhaps most pertinently, month-over-month sales, it seems likely that the Switch would have sold something closer to 700k in March without the pandemic, assuming that AC itself didn't also benefit from the pandemic. That would still make AC one of the biggest system-sellers ever, maybe the biggest ever in the U.S. in absolute numerical terms (I'd have to go and recalculate everything for comparing it to other games), and that March would still have been one of the best non-holiday months ever in the U.S. April would have seen a big drop-off, though, but AC still could still have had some sort of residual effect, possibly propelling it to as much as 300k that month. Past that, we shouldn't have seen any measurable effect on sales from AC, given that system-sellers never have any impact past their second month (and most never past their first). So, we might have seen a net YoY gain of around 400k for that 2-month period. Had the Switch been on average flat over the remaining 10 months of the year, it could have gotten close to 7M. But had it experienced even a modest drop for those other 10 month, say 10%, it would have been down slightly for the whole year. There's a reason why most predictions had the Switch's 2020 sales being at best flat or slightly up from 2019. Nobody, and I mean nobody, expected it to sell 9 million.

As for those "time limits" you refer to, Nintendo has a well-known habit of running on short generations, killing off even successful systems prematurely. Their home consoles have never lasted longer than 6 years before being replaced (unless you count the Famicom's run in Japan). The Wii could have lasted longer and had better legs had they not bailed on it in 2010-11 to put all their efforts into the Wii U. They released the DS when the GBA was still doing very well, which had the effect of completely sucking the wind out of the GBA's sails. They released the 3DS when the DS was doing even better than what the GBA was doing, which caused the DS's sales to decline rapidly from what was a very healthy baseline.

While I would be pleasantly surprised if they didn't repeat themselves again with the Switch, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they did it again, because Nintendo is probably always going to do what Nintendoes (sorry, bad pun). If we don't start hearing rumblings of the Switch's successor (which I really think will be a "Switch 2"; same form factor, but with a generation leap in power) by early 2023, then and only then will I be inclined to think the Switch will be longer-lived than the norm for a Nintendo system. But realistically, I think the most likely target date for the Switch's successor will be November 2023, giving it about the same run as the DS had before it was replaced. Maybe March 2024 at the latest.

Given Switch's momentum going into this year, we are likely going to get yet another year without Switch getting its official first price cut. If we assume this price cut will happen in 2022 because that will finally be the year when it's necessary to maintain good sales, then why would the console get replaced only one year later?

I'll say it again, Nintendo is talking about this longer lifecycle to their investors, so it's not some meaningless PR fluff. When Nintendo reiterates this same thing basically every three months and then doesn't stick to this plan, investors will have a lot of questions.

How many years does it usually take for a console to get replaced after it had its first official price cut?

I am not sure Nintendo will ever price cut. It is unprecedented, but all the console makers have been iffy on price cuts for the past 6+ years.  Holiday promotions would be a thing though. Either way 2023 launch doesn't make sense, March 2024 or later does.



Norion on 05 February 2021
RolStoppable said:

Given Switch's momentum going into this year, we are likely going to get yet another year without Switch getting its official first price cut. If we assume this price cut will happen in 2022 because that will finally be the year when it's necessary to maintain good sales, then why would the console get replaced only one year later?

I'll say it again, Nintendo is talking about this longer lifecycle to their investors, so it's not some meaningless PR fluff. When Nintendo reiterates this same thing basically every three months and then doesn't stick to this plan, investors will have a lot of questions.

How many years does it usually take for a console to get replaced after it had its first official price cut?

I do think 2024 is more likely than 2023 though a point to consider is video game hardware sales are far more important to Nintendo than the other two to the extent Switch sales accounted for around half of their revenue last quarter. If 2022 sales end up being unsatisfactory to Nintendo I could see them potentially releasing the Switch 2 in holiday 2023 so hardware sales don't decline too much. This scenario is unlikely I think but it's something to consider.