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Forums - Sales Discussion - February NPD 2021: Switch~614k, PS5 ~300K, XBS <175k

The COVID situation is unprecedented once in a life time event that's thrown all gaming trends for a loop.

You can find like Switch Lite reasonably easily, but any other piece of gaming hardware that isn't the ancient PS4/XB1 is practically constantly sold out.

PS5? Sold out. XBox Series X? Sold out. Switch, generally sold out though not as supply constrained for the base model. XBox Series X has a wishy washy launch lineup, doesn't matter, sold out. Nintendo's gone almost a full calendar year with a fairly mediocre lineup post Animal Crossing (a farmed out Musou game as their big holiday 2020 title, a few Wii U ports, a collection of older Mario games, and one new major release for an entire 12 months -- a Paper Mario game, which is a B-tier franchise). Still no problems selling. Not even just game consoles, the Nvidia 30 series graphics cards that are very expensive are sold out constantly and now there's reports that those shortages will last until well into Q3, lol.

Trying to build a gaming PC with modern parts is a giant headache because the new GPUs especially are constantly sold out. Even the ones that are mega pricey. 

We're still living in a world where a lot of people are working from home, not going out, not travelling for holidays, no movie theaters, not many new movies, spectators are still largely not allowed in to sporting events ... entertainment options are still very limited out there for a lot of people, gaming is seeing a continued boost. A TV show can be binged in a couple of days, but video games are a medium where you can invest weeks into a single game to entertain yourself with, it's a medium uniquely positioned to take advantage of a pandemic like this. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 16 March 2021

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Massive difference, not sure why the ps5 is overhyped, its not even selling that well,not does it have much gamez to play.
I can wait a year or so extra



 

My youtube gaming page.

http://www.youtube.com/user/klaudkil

Shadow1980 said:
Agente42 said:

zero covid effect for sony and Microsoft?

The COVID bump was clearly a thing for the PS4 & XBO (I've gone over this in previous threads and will not reiterate the data & analysis here), and I think it's definitely a factor for the PS5 & XBS. Demand for consoles is still elevated. I think that if there were no supply issues, the PS5 & XBS would have total combined sales well ahead of the PS4 & XBO, which had no stock issues, rather than simply barely keeping pace with them. Sony & MS got the least benefit out of the COVID bump because of the generational transition. They shipped enough PS4s & XBOs to meet what they thought was going to be a normal level of demand in 2020, not expecting the sudden surge in demand that began in March. And for whatever https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-16/sony-is-said-to-plan-limited-playstation-5-output-in-first-year">reason, they haven't been making enough of their newer systems to fully meet demand for those. Nintendo meanwhile was in the middle of a console life cycle rather than in the middle of a transition. Nintendo was much better positioned to weather the aspects of the pandemic that could negatively impact sales potential, and were able to increase production of the Switch. Had the pandemic happened in, say, 2017 instead, we could have potentially seen a record-smashing year for combined PlayStation & Xbox sales, while the Switch, still in its infancy and having moderate supply issues, could have been negatively impacted.

SKMBlake said:

Well you do know what happened to people predicting peaks for the Switch, right ?

Yeah. They failed to predict a major pandemic would hit and cause demand for consoles to skyrocket.

Literally every professional analyst and commentator agrees that the pandemic was the primary driver of the increased demand for consoles over the past year. The data agrees with them. The only place where that simple fact is controversial is online discussions where there's frequently less partiality on the matter because some people feel they have a horse in the race. As I've said in previous threads, based on known predictions, not a single person, professional or amateur, came anywhere close to getting it right for the Switch in 2020. Had the pandemic not been a thing, the last 12 months would have seen far lower Switch sales.

I get it. Lots of perfectly reasonable and understandable excitement for the Switch. It's a great system with great games. Nintendo fans are happy to see it selling well after the company hit a rough patch post-Wii. But let's not pretend that the last 12 months of sales were normal. They weren't. And when things go back to normal, it stands to reason that demand will soften in the absence of the biggest factor that drove increased demand in the past year. Demand for consoles is abnormally high, fueled by increased demand for at-home entertainment and further boosted by stimulus checks. If demand is being artificially inflated by a temporary external factor, it stands to reason that once said factor goes away the level of demand will not maintain its momentum. I look at the pandemic as a canister of nitrous that gives a temporary one-time speed boost to a race car. But apparently some people think the Switch exists in a vacuum and once you let off the accelerator it will continue coasting forever at the same speed, regardless of what made it go so fast in the first place.

Serious question: What's your forecast for Switch sales including this year after 2020? I know what your prediction is for the US, and I have a general idea of your post peak sales total (50 million, from what I gathered from your dicussions in the 2020 Switch sales thread.)



Shadow1980 said:

Literally every professional analyst and commentator agrees that the pandemic was the primary driver of the increased demand for consoles over the past year. The data agrees with them. 

Yep, like the same professional analyst said that 2019 would probably peak year for the Switch (since the PS4 hit 20 million as peak year as well) since no real new model or game was coming, would fall short to achieve 100 million units sales (an analysis made in September 2019), got only its prime because of the pandemic and now the momentum is gone for ever and will sell way less.

 We all laughed to their predictions, and now all of a sudden, they are credible sources which has to be believed ?

If you want so. I will still be ultra optimistic and say that 2021 will sell at least the same amount or even more than 2020.



Every year so far for the Switch has been proclaimed as its "peak". 2018 was supposed to be it's peak because how can you beat Smash + Pokemon? Or 2017 because it had Zelda, 3D Mario, and Splatoon? Or 2019 cos it had a "real" Pokemon and the Lite?

All Nintendo needs to beat 2020 is a stronger second half in terms of software and more plentiful supply. Will both those things happen? Too early to say. But it's definitely possible.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 16 March 2021

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curl-6 said:

Every year so far for the Switch has been proclaimed as its "peak". 2018 was supposed to be it's peak because how can you beat Smash + Pokemon? Or 2017 because it had Zelda, 3D Mario, and Splatoon? Or 2019 cos it had a "real" Pokemon and the Lite?

All Nintendo needs to beat 2020 is a stronger second half in terms of software and more plentiful supply. Will both those things happen? Too early to say. But it's definitely possible.

I'd probably also add a hardware revision myself, like a 'Pro/X' premium model (I'm still calling it the Nintendo Switch+, damn it!) But as it stands right now, they can't even keep up with demand of the current base model. (The Lite model has plenty of stock. At least in the area I live in the U.S.)



Shadow1980 said:
PDiddy said:

Serious question: What's your forecast for Switch sales including this year after 2020? I know what your prediction is for the US, and I have a general idea of your post peak sales total (50 million, from what I gathered from your dicussions in the 2020 Switch sales thread.)

The biggest variable in making a longer-term forecast is going to be when the Switch's successor is released. At this moment, I'd give a range of estimates for U.S. sales from 2021 onward of anywhere from 20 to 25 million.

Sorry, I meant wordwide. Could you give a general year to year estimate? BTW, I think the successor for the Switch won't be released until 2024 at the earliest.



Shadow1980 said:
SKMBlake said:

Yep, like the same professional analyst said that 2019 would probably peak year for the Switch (since the PS4 hit 20 million as peak year as well) since no real new model or game was coming, would fall short to achieve 100 million units sales (an analysis made in September 2019), got only its prime because of the pandemic and now the momentum is gone for ever and will sell way less.

 We all laughed to their predictions, and now all of a sudden, they are credible sources which has to be believed ?

If you want so. I will still be ultra optimistic and say that 2021 will sell at least the same amount or even more than 2020.

So you believe that the "COVID bump" is a falsehood, and that people ranging from organizations like Nikkei & GfK to multiple mainstream and gaming-specific news outlets that reported on the COVID boom in video games are all frauds?

Never said that.



xl-klaudkil said:

Massive difference, not sure why the ps5 is overhyped, its not even selling that well,not does it have much gamez to play.
I can wait a year or so extra

Yeah, I think some people just buy a system when it launches no matter what.  When you take away every game that is also on PS4, I think the Demon's Souls Remaster is the main draw.  I guess there is also Astro's Playroom.  And then there is some Final Fantasy 7 Remake DLC coming in June.  It looks like it is going to be a while until some actual exclusive games come to PS5.



Shadow1980 said:
SKMBlake said:

Never said that.

Well, do you accept that the COVID bump exists or not?

Well of course