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Forums - Sales Discussion - The evolution of the console market over time

JWeinCom said:

There's a few problems here.

1. First off, there's a chicken and an egg problem. For instance, I own a PS4 and an XBox One, I'm primarily a Nintendo gamer. So, if you just count co-ownership, you don't whether it is somebody who owned a PS4 who was converted to Wii, or vice versa. Knowing the gaming preference would be useful here. 

For clarity's sake, I should have probably said something like "lapsed Wii gamers". What I assume was meant, (at least what I meant) was people who were Wii owners, didn't buy a 3DS or a Wii U, and now bought a Switch. These people might have bought a PS4 in the interim (like me) but the appeal of the Switch was for a Wii-ish experience.

2. Second, that figure is going down if you believe the available data (which is shaky at best). In 2018 the figure was 70%.https://nintendosoup.com/npd-70-of-switch-owners-also-own-a-ps4-or-xbox-one/

We were somewhere over 50 in early 2019 https://gamingbolt.com/over-50-of-switch-owners-own-ps4-over-40-own-xbox-one-npd-group

Now we're at over 40. https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/01/more_than_40_percent_of_switch_owners_in_the_us_have_another_video_game_system

The data on this seems to all come from NPD. Possibly their data is off altogether (even if not there'd be a margin of error). But if we want to take their results at face value, that means that the number of co-owners is shrinking pretty quickly, and will likely continue to fall. This would suggest that the early adopters were generally big gamers (not surprising) who were likely to buy multiple consoles, and the newer people buying Switches are not PS4 or XBox One owners.  

3. Building on that point, what about Wii? The data on that is more scarce but, as of 2009, https://www.alistdaily.com/media/most-wii-owners-do-not-own-xbox-360-ps3/ about 14% of Wii owners had a PS3 and about 26% owned a PS3. That number almost definitely went up as sales of the Wii dropped, sales of the 360 and PS3 increased, and Sony and Microsoft both directly targeted the Wii market with Kinect and Move. Depending on how many people owned all three, between 26 and 40% of Wii owners had another console as of 2009.

Considering that the number of Switch owners who own another console has been dropping and is somewhere above 40% (in the US anyway), then ultimately, the numbers of Switch owners owning a PS4One will not be too far off from Wii60 and PSWii owners. It's a bit higher, so sure, some people who previously played mainly on PS4 or XBox One are mixed in there, but that's not the driving force. 

As for the "4 Wii games" argument...

1. This is pretty sketchy. I'm not sure exactly what you're counting, cause technically there are 5. Wii Sports, Play, Fit, Fit Plus, Sports Resort. 

Wii Fit/Plus has a spiritual successor in Ring Fit that is actually doing quite very well. It will definitely hit ten million, and has the potential to hit 20 million in the long run. Play shouldn't count because it was purchased mainly because it came with an additional Wiimote. So, there's really only two that haven't yet come to Switch, Sports and Sports resort.

Also, if you want to say that the gamers can't be former Wii players because the games with "Wii in the title" didn't come to Switch, then how does that jive with PS4 owners accounting for a huge jump in sales? Call of Duty and GTA aren't here, Fifa ain't selling on Switch, and TLOUS style horror games aren't doing much. 

2. The problem here again is that like Laser, you're conflating Wii owners with "people who bought Wii Sports and nothing else". And, that really isn't the case.

The Wii sold about 920 million games. Wii Sports/Play/Fit/Plus/Play/Motion/Party/Music etc sold around 190 million copies. This is only about 20% of what was purchased for the Wii.

So sure, there are some people who only played Wii Sports and Wii Fit and nothing else, and those people probably have not bought a Switch and likely will not unless something like that comes out, and maybe not even them.

But, a lot of Wii owners bought Wii Sports and then played Mario Kart, or Mario Party, New Super Mario Bros, Smash, Mario Galaxy, etc etc. Those people may have, and I think did in many cases, come back.

To the same point as my last post, we have tons of traditional Nintendo franchises that were on the Wii or DS, then 3DS, and now Switch. Mario Party, 3D Mario, 2D Mario, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Kirby, Paper Mario, Smash, etc. In pretty much every case the games are solidly beating their 3ds versions, in about half, they are completely destroying them. Are these sales likely more attributable to Wii/DS players (who were the driving force the last time these franchises were successful) or PS4 owners who are now buying games in franchises, genres, and styles they don't support all that much on PS4?

I'm actually more inclined to believe very old Nintendo gamers from SNES and N64 who left Nintendo home consoles came back again to play Mario Odyssey and Breath of The Wild 

O_o..?

Mario Galaxy outsold Mario 64. New Super Mario Bros Wii outsold Mario World (by a lot). And Galaxy 2 crushes Mario World 2 for what it's worth.

Considering that, why on Earth would you be inclined to believe that the group that bought less Mario, is less than half the size in absolute numbers, and last bought a Nintendo console a decade or two earlier bought more Switches than Wii owners?

It's semi more plausible with Zelda (TP sold about the same as Ocarina without GC sales, although it handily outsold LTTP), but still outside some weird Wii bias, I can't figure out why this would be logical.

1) Wii Sports was bundled outside Japan, that's why I skipped it to favor games that people actively spent their money on

2) PS4/XBONE owners are the console gamers who are used to play games with standard controllers, action-adventure, RPGs, platformers and so on. Sometimes I feel people think Nintendo gamers and PS4/Xbone gamers are two completely separate groups. It's anecdotal evidence, but almost every PS4/Xbone gamer over 30 years old I know used to play Nintendo games from NES, SNES and N64 eras (even if they played those games illegally). Just because those people are picking Sony and Microsoft for quite sometime it doesn't mean they were doomed to never buy a Nintendo home console again (specially because in reality they never really stopped playing Nintendo, as handheld sales suggest). When those guys come back? In my opinion, they are coming back on Switch 

3) You are totally right, I'm biased against Wii, that's why I shouldn't have talked about Wii user base as a whole. I guess I might now have make myself clear, for Wii-only gamers I wasn't talking about gamers who have Wii but not PS3 or X360, but to newcomers, gamers who got into gaming because of Wii games (mostly Wii Sports games, as those sells humongous numbers) and they seem to account for some relevant part of that generation market.

In 6th generation a total of 212 million home consoles were sold (Dreamcast included)
One generation later this number increased to 275 million

Market growth aside it's a very big increase. As industry growth, new teenagers and kids got into gaming and overall people get more wealth such growth is expected

The problem is after 275 million hardware was sold in 7th gen so far we have 245 million (Switch Lite removed) hardware sold with both PS4 and Xbone dying, Wii U dead and it's just with Switch inflating the hell of this stats thanks to the huge influx of handheld owners who buy only handhelds (particularly common in Japan where Switch success is beyond madness) it's still a decrease of 30 million systems and I'm very inclined to believe those guys were mostly Wii owners than PS3-X360 owners for the single reason PS4 and XBone are so similar to PS3 and X360 that I wouldn't understand why those system would bleed buyers (plus sales for PS3+Xbox360 and PS4+XBone are similar)

How to explain those 30 million hardware not bought (yet) for 8th generation despite the marketing increase in all kinds of metrics? Was PS3-X360 owners who decided not buying hardware anymore? Possible, but more unlikely. Sales for PS4+Xbone are only 8 million less than PS3+X360, their userbase seems to be quite consistent, maybe declining a bit because people are ditching them in favor to Switch for a while now, but overall the numbers seems stable 

For me, those are more likely the Wii owners who got into games like Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wii Resort, etc. I don't see this crowd buying Switch massively so far indeed the only game that look remotely close to Wii is Ring Fit and this game it's not going to be nowhere near as Wii Sports despite Switch being very likely to outsell Wii in 2021 already. If those gamers are Wii Sports crowd they might be really slow to pick Ring Fit

And this crowd was huge, we are talking about a series of games that together moved about 21% of the total software of a system you maybe not realize how big it is but I can't think a single franchise that was able to get that close of software share of any Nintendo system (or in any console system at all). Not even all Mario franchises combined, not even Pokemon on 3DS, nothing

So yeah, I'm not seeing this Wii-crowned accounting for a big chunk of Switch sales, not until I see a huge influx of software similar to RFA pulling the same numbers of what they used to pull on Wii days



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IcaroRibeiro said:
JWeinCom said:

There's a few problems here.

1. First off, there's a chicken and an egg problem. For instance, I own a PS4 and an XBox One, I'm primarily a Nintendo gamer. So, if you just count co-ownership, you don't whether it is somebody who owned a PS4 who was converted to Wii, or vice versa. Knowing the gaming preference would be useful here. 

For clarity's sake, I should have probably said something like "lapsed Wii gamers". What I assume was meant, (at least what I meant) was people who were Wii owners, didn't buy a 3DS or a Wii U, and now bought a Switch. These people might have bought a PS4 in the interim (like me) but the appeal of the Switch was for a Wii-ish experience.

2. Second, that figure is going down if you believe the available data (which is shaky at best). In 2018 the figure was 70%.https://nintendosoup.com/npd-70-of-switch-owners-also-own-a-ps4-or-xbox-one/

We were somewhere over 50 in early 2019 https://gamingbolt.com/over-50-of-switch-owners-own-ps4-over-40-own-xbox-one-npd-group

Now we're at over 40. https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/01/more_than_40_percent_of_switch_owners_in_the_us_have_another_video_game_system

The data on this seems to all come from NPD. Possibly their data is off altogether (even if not there'd be a margin of error). But if we want to take their results at face value, that means that the number of co-owners is shrinking pretty quickly, and will likely continue to fall. This would suggest that the early adopters were generally big gamers (not surprising) who were likely to buy multiple consoles, and the newer people buying Switches are not PS4 or XBox One owners.  

3. Building on that point, what about Wii? The data on that is more scarce but, as of 2009, https://www.alistdaily.com/media/most-wii-owners-do-not-own-xbox-360-ps3/ about 14% of Wii owners had a PS3 and about 26% owned a PS3. That number almost definitely went up as sales of the Wii dropped, sales of the 360 and PS3 increased, and Sony and Microsoft both directly targeted the Wii market with Kinect and Move. Depending on how many people owned all three, between 26 and 40% of Wii owners had another console as of 2009.

Considering that the number of Switch owners who own another console has been dropping and is somewhere above 40% (in the US anyway), then ultimately, the numbers of Switch owners owning a PS4One will not be too far off from Wii60 and PSWii owners. It's a bit higher, so sure, some people who previously played mainly on PS4 or XBox One are mixed in there, but that's not the driving force. 

As for the "4 Wii games" argument...

1. This is pretty sketchy. I'm not sure exactly what you're counting, cause technically there are 5. Wii Sports, Play, Fit, Fit Plus, Sports Resort. 

Wii Fit/Plus has a spiritual successor in Ring Fit that is actually doing quite very well. It will definitely hit ten million, and has the potential to hit 20 million in the long run. Play shouldn't count because it was purchased mainly because it came with an additional Wiimote. So, there's really only two that haven't yet come to Switch, Sports and Sports resort.

Also, if you want to say that the gamers can't be former Wii players because the games with "Wii in the title" didn't come to Switch, then how does that jive with PS4 owners accounting for a huge jump in sales? Call of Duty and GTA aren't here, Fifa ain't selling on Switch, and TLOUS style horror games aren't doing much. 

2. The problem here again is that like Laser, you're conflating Wii owners with "people who bought Wii Sports and nothing else". And, that really isn't the case.

The Wii sold about 920 million games. Wii Sports/Play/Fit/Plus/Play/Motion/Party/Music etc sold around 190 million copies. This is only about 20% of what was purchased for the Wii.

So sure, there are some people who only played Wii Sports and Wii Fit and nothing else, and those people probably have not bought a Switch and likely will not unless something like that comes out, and maybe not even them.

But, a lot of Wii owners bought Wii Sports and then played Mario Kart, or Mario Party, New Super Mario Bros, Smash, Mario Galaxy, etc etc. Those people may have, and I think did in many cases, come back.

To the same point as my last post, we have tons of traditional Nintendo franchises that were on the Wii or DS, then 3DS, and now Switch. Mario Party, 3D Mario, 2D Mario, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Kirby, Paper Mario, Smash, etc. In pretty much every case the games are solidly beating their 3ds versions, in about half, they are completely destroying them. Are these sales likely more attributable to Wii/DS players (who were the driving force the last time these franchises were successful) or PS4 owners who are now buying games in franchises, genres, and styles they don't support all that much on PS4?

I'm actually more inclined to believe very old Nintendo gamers from SNES and N64 who left Nintendo home consoles came back again to play Mario Odyssey and Breath of The Wild 

O_o..?

Mario Galaxy outsold Mario 64. New Super Mario Bros Wii outsold Mario World (by a lot). And Galaxy 2 crushes Mario World 2 for what it's worth.

Considering that, why on Earth would you be inclined to believe that the group that bought less Mario, is less than half the size in absolute numbers, and last bought a Nintendo console a decade or two earlier bought more Switches than Wii owners?

It's semi more plausible with Zelda (TP sold about the same as Ocarina without GC sales, although it handily outsold LTTP), but still outside some weird Wii bias, I can't figure out why this would be logical.

1) Wii Sports was bundled outside Japan, that's why I skipped it to favor games that people actively spent their money on

2) PS4/XBONE owners are the console gamers who are used to play games with standard controllers, action-adventure, RPGs, platformers and so on. Sometimes I feel people think Nintendo gamers and PS4/Xbone gamers are two completely separate groups. It's anecdotal evidence, but almost every PS4/Xbone gamer over 30 years old I know used to play Nintendo games from NES, SNES and N64 eras (even if they played those games illegally). Just because those people are picking Sony and Microsoft for quite sometime it doesn't mean they were doomed to never buy a Nintendo home console again (specially because in reality they never really stopped playing Nintendo, as handheld sales suggest). When those guys come back? In my opinion, they are coming back on Switch 

3) You are totally right, I'm biased against Wii, that's why I shouldn't have talked about Wii user base as a whole. I guess I might now have make myself clear, for Wii-only gamers I wasn't talking about gamers who have Wii but not PS3 or X360, but to newcomers, gamers who got into gaming because of Wii games (mostly Wii Sports games, as those sells humongous numbers) and they seem to account for some relevant part of that generation market.

In 6th generation a total of 212 million home consoles were sold (Dreamcast included)
One generation later this number increased to 275 million

Market growth aside it's a very big increase. As industry growth, new teenagers and kids got into gaming and overall people get more wealth such growth is expected

The problem is after 275 million hardware was sold in 7th gen so far we have 245 million (Switch Lite removed) hardware sold with both PS4 and Xbone dying, Wii U dead and it's just with Switch inflating the hell of this stats thanks to the huge influx of handheld owners who buy only handhelds (particularly common in Japan where Switch success is beyond madness) it's still a decrease of 30 million systems and I'm very inclined to believe those guys were mostly Wii owners than PS3-X360 owners for the single reason PS4 and XBone are so similar to PS3 and X360 that I wouldn't understand why those system would bleed buyers (plus sales for PS3+Xbox360 and PS4+XBone are similar)

How to explain those 30 million hardware not bought (yet) for 8th generation despite the marketing increase in all kinds of metrics? Was PS3-X360 owners who decided not buying hardware anymore? Possible, but more unlikely. Sales for PS4+Xbone are only 8 million less than PS3+X360, their userbase seems to be quite consistent, maybe declining a bit because people are ditching them in favor to Switch for a while now, but overall the numbers seems stable 

For me, those are more likely the Wii owners who got into games like Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wii Resort, etc. I don't see this crowd buying Switch massively so far indeed the only game that look remotely close to Wii is Ring Fit and this game it's not going to be nowhere near as Wii Sports despite Switch being very likely to outsell Wii in 2021 already. If those gamers are Wii Sports crowd they might be really slow to pick Ring Fit

And this crowd was huge, we are talking about a series of games that together moved about 21% of the total software of a system you maybe not realize how big it is but I can't think a single franchise that was able to get that close of software share of any Nintendo system (or in any console system at all). Not even all Mario franchises combined, not even Pokemon on 3DS, nothing

So yeah, I'm not seeing this Wii-crowned accounting for a big chunk of Switch sales, not until I see a huge influx of software similar to RFA pulling the same numbers of what they used to pull on Wii days

1. If you take out Wii Sports and Wii Play (people chose to spend ten bucks for it I guess, but still shouldn't count IMO) then the only "Wii games" that put out huge numbers are Wii Fit/Plus and Sports Resort. So it's really two games you're talking about. One of which has a pseudo sequel that's selling very well. 

And, if you take Wii Sports out of the picture, the top selling games are Mario Kart, Wii Sports Resort, NSMB Wii, Smash, Wii Fit, Super Mario Galaxy, Just Dance, Wii Party, and Mario Party 8.

With the exception of Sports resort and Just Dance (which I'm only excluding for lack of data, although I guess if it was truly doing amazing Ubisoft would have said something) those are pretty much the same kinds of games that are doing well on Switch. They'll all have 10 million plus selling sequels or spiritual successors on the Switch, so that indicates similar people are buying the system. 

2. When you start by saying "I know it's anecdotal evidence, but" that's where you should stop. 

3. How to explain those 30 million hardware not bought (yet) for 8th generation despite the marketing increase in all kinds of metrics?

I don't have to, because nobody was arguing that the Switch recaptured 100% of the Wii audience. That's not the question we were addressing. We're addressing why the Switch is selling so much better than the Wii U and 3DS.

4. I guess I might now have make myself clear, for Wii-only gamers I wasn't talking about gamers who have Wii but not PS3 or X360, but to newcomers, gamers who got into gaming because of Wii games (mostly Wii Sports games, as those sells humongous numbers) and they seem to account for some relevant part of that generation market.

...

For me, those are more likely the Wii owners who got into games like Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wii Resort, etc. I don't see this crowd buying Switch massively so far indeed the only game that look remotely close to Wii is Ring Fit and this game it's not going to be nowhere near as Wii Sports despite Switch being very likely to outsell Wii in 2021 already. If those gamers are Wii Sports crowd they might be really slow to pick Ring Fit

You claimed half the user base "comes from PS4 or XBox One" because Switch owners own those systems (regardless of whether or not they owned any other consoles)... but, if someone who owned a Wii buys a Switch, it doesn't count unless they only owned the Wii and nothing before and even then, they only really count if they were one of the people who bought it for Wii Sports/Fit... 

You've sort of stacked the deck there, haven't you? Let's use the same standard for all the systems. How many Switch sales do you think are coming from people who entered the market with the PS4? 

4. And this crowd was huge, we are talking about a series of games that together moved about 21% of the total software of a system you maybe not realize how big it is but I can't think a single franchise that was able to get that close of software share of any Nintendo system (or in any console system at all). Not even all Mario franchises combined, not even Pokemon on 3DS, nothing.

No, it's actually a pretty small crowd, since you're excluding anyone who bought a Wii for some other game, or anyone who bought a Wii for Wii Sports/Fit and also wound up buying other games for it (considering how much sales of other franchises grew on the Wii, there had to be a lot of those).

5. So yeah, I'm not seeing this Wii-crowned accounting for a big chunk of Switch sales, not until I see a huge influx of software similar to RFA pulling the same numbers of what they used to pull on Wii days

Of course you're not seeing it, because you've defined Wii owner in a way that makes it an impossibility.

You've basically defined "Wii owner" as someone who bought a Wii for Wii _________ and only Wii ___________, never played any of the other games for Wii, and won't buy any machine in the future unless it has Wii ___________. And, if you define it that way, then obviously they can't make up any portion of the Switch sales, unless some Wii ______ equivalent is on Switch.

But... in fact, Wii owners bought other games. They bought 35 million copies of Mario Kart (about 30 million more than the previous best selling console version) about 13 million copies of Smash (5 million more than on Gamecube), 30+million copies of NSMB, 12 million copies of Mario Galaxy (+ 7 more of Galaxy 2), 9 million copies of Mario Party (about 6 million more than the previous best seller), and so on. 

So, I really can't see how people who bought Nintendo consoles in the fairly recent past, and bought a lot of the same kinds of games (a lot of them in the same series) that are selling on the Switch are not the most likely reason the Switch has expanded so much beyond what the 3DS audience migrating could explain aren't the most likely source of the influx of players.

Why would people who have never bought any games at all, or people who primarily played on the PS4 and played types of games that aren't selling well on Switch be more likely suspects?

Last edited by JWeinCom - on 02 April 2021

JWeinCom said:
The_Liquid_Laser said:

You made a long thoughtful post with some good points.  However, I can tell by these first two words that you missed the context of what I was talking about.  Let me back up and provide some context.

Go back to Rol's table in his first post.  If you are like me, then it probably is not entirely clear what some of his terms mean immediately, and you might also wonder why he put some systems into certain categories.  After getting a couple of replies from him, I realized that he is using the terms "arcade" and "accessible" interchangeably.

For example in one previous post he said, "I've said it multiple times before, a complete version of such a table would include handheld consoles. I can tell you where Nintendo's handhelds would be placed: GB/C, GBA and DS would all be Arcade Evolution, because those were the games those handhelds were about."

Does the DS really represent arcade gaming though?  It has a touch screen and stylus.  This kind of control scheme is pretty similar to how a mouse works.  With a mouse you might scroll your cursor onto some icon and click on it, and that is pretty similar to tapping your stylus on an icon on a touchscreen.  The DS controls are actually a move toward the PC direction compared to the GBA.  Also there were some top selling DS games like Brain Age and Nintendogs which used a stylus a lot like how a person might play these games with a mouse.  The DS is definitely an accessible system, but it is also a move toward PC gaming compared to the GBA.  However, Rol says the DS and GBA are equally arcade-like, because he is using the terms "arcade" and "accessible" interchangeably.

Now the systems we were actually comparing were not the DS and GBA.  We were comparing the Wii and the Switch.  Rol has both of these in his "arcade evolution" category, because he thinks they are both equally accessible.  I don't think these two systems are equally accessible.  I don't think the Switch has any really popular game that is accessible as Wii Sports.

Now you, or anyone else, are free to disagree with me.  Maybe you think the Switch is just as accessible as the Wii or even more accessible.  However, at least now I hope you know the context of what I was talking about.

Gotta admit, I'm a bit irked. Cause this feels a bit evasive, and I feel I wasted my time in replying. 

There isn't any context I missed or misunderstood. I generally find semantic argument about labels, such as what counts as arcade or not to be incredibly dull and pointless. If two people agree on terms, then that's all that matters. So, while I understand your discussion about arcade vs accessibility, I did not respond to that part.

The question of where Switch sales likely came from is a question that can be answered with facts, data, and logic, and is one that I thought might be worth discussing. That's the point I chose to comment on. Whether the Switch sales came from the PS4 and Xbox 1 as you stated is a factual claim that stands on its own independent of any context. The Switch sales came from the PS4 or they did not, and what Rol means by "arcade evolution" is completely irrelevant to that point. Whether the Switch is as accessible as the Wii is at best tangentially related to the claim.  

I'll give the benefit of the doubt that this was not an attempt to be evasive. So, kindly answer these yes or no questions.

1. Did you say "these "new" sales the Switch is getting are not coming from the Wii. The extra sales are coming from the PS4 and XB1 crowd"?

2. Was my post responsive to this claim? I.e. did it propose reasons why we either should or should not accept that claim?

If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then you should either explain why my counterargument is not sound, or concede that the extra sales are not likely from the PS4 crowd. Alternatively, you can say "I'm not going to defend the point, and you wasted your time replying". But, don't tell me that I somehow "missed the context" when I am directly addressing a claim you made. 

"So, while I understand your discussion about arcade vs accessibility, I did not respond to that part."

By your own admission you ignored most of my post.  Now you are irked that I am ignoring your post.  You are irked that I did the same thing that you did.  

If you are ignoring most of my post then you are actually missing the point of what I am saying.  Perhaps, now you will understand why I didn't bother replying to you either.



IcaroRibeiro said:

Switch having a huge part of DS owners makes sense, as half of DS owners also bought a 3DS and Switch is just the sequel of 3DS. The four biggest 3DS franchises are also exclusively on Switch: Aninal Crossing, Pokemon, Mario Kart and 2D Marios

(...)

I'm actually more inclined to believe very old Nintendo gamers from SNES and N64 who left Nintendo home consoles came back again to play Mario Odyssey and Breath of The Wild 

At least in my case, the interest for the Switch came from a mixture of these two factors: 1) I bought a DS and, years later, a 3DS to play Pokémon, and I would buy the next console that had a game in the series; 2) the last Nintendo home console I had before the Switch was the N64 (although my brother had a Wii).
I think the Switch must have attracted several gamers who haven't had a Big N non-portable console in a while - and I believe one of the factors for this is that it has the best third-party support for a Nintendo home console since the SNES.



It sounds good when you say "For the People", but what you really want is... a stronger army than the Knights, and the evil power to control the people.

(Ramza Beoulve, Final Fantasy Tactics)

JWeinCom said:

1. If you take out Wii Sports and Wii Play (people chose to spend ten bucks for it I guess, but still shouldn't count IMO) then the only "Wii games" that put out huge numbers are Wii Fit/Plus and Sports Resort. So it's really two games you're talking about. One of which has a pseudo sequel that's selling very well. 

And, if you take Wii Sports out of the picture, the top selling games are Mario Kart, Wii Sports Resort, NSMB Wii, Smash, Wii Fit, Super Mario Galaxy, Just Dance, Wii Party, and Mario Party 8.

With the exception of Sports resort and Just Dance (which I'm only excluding for lack of data, although I guess if it was truly doing amazing Ubisoft would have said something) those are pretty much the same kinds of games that are doing well on Switch. They'll all have 10 million plus selling sequels or spiritual successors on the Switch, so that indicates similar people are buying the system. 

2. When you start by saying "I know it's anecdotal evidence, but" that's where you should stop. 

3. How to explain those 30 million hardware not bought (yet) for 8th generation despite the marketing increase in all kinds of metrics?

I don't have to, because nobody was arguing that the Switch recaptured 100% of the Wii audience. That's not the question we were addressing. We're addressing why the Switch is selling so much better than the Wii U and 3DS.

4. I guess I might now have make myself clear, for Wii-only gamers I wasn't talking about gamers who have Wii but not PS3 or X360, but to newcomers, gamers who got into gaming because of Wii games (mostly Wii Sports games, as those sells humongous numbers) and they seem to account for some relevant part of that generation market.

...

For me, those are more likely the Wii owners who got into games like Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wii Resort, etc. I don't see this crowd buying Switch massively so far indeed the only game that look remotely close to Wii is Ring Fit and this game it's not going to be nowhere near as Wii Sports despite Switch being very likely to outsell Wii in 2021 already. If those gamers are Wii Sports crowd they might be really slow to pick Ring Fit

You claimed half the user base "comes from PS4 or XBox One" because Switch owners own those systems (regardless of whether or not they owned any other consoles)... but, if someone who owned a Wii buys a Switch, it doesn't count unless they only owned the Wii and nothing before and even then, they only really count if they were one of the people who bought it for Wii Sports/Fit... 

You've sort of stacked the deck there, haven't you? Let's use the same standard for all the systems. How many Switch sales do you think are coming from people who entered the market with the PS4? 

1) You analysis adds absolutely nothing to the debate. I excluded Wii Sports because it was bundled so it was sell well regardless people bought their Wii for play this kind of game or if they bought their Wii to play Mario or Zelda. If I want to make an analysis of how much people bought the Wii mainly for Wii Sports type of game I need to first rule out the game that has an almost mandatory admission

2) Since you won't believe I don't know who do you expect those gamers to be. The first Sony console was released in 1994 and while I believe it was the first console of many gamers in several European, Latin and east asian countries there is absolute no way for it to be the same in Japan and USA. As for Xbox I don't think there isn't a thing to prove about it, Xbox was first released only in 2002, unless you are younger than 20 I will hardly believe it was the only console you ever played in your life.  

3) I understand you want to explain why Switch sales are great, while Wii U flopped and 3DS underperformed compared to DS

Well  DS owners being very present on Switch really makes sense to me, the only very well selling DS games that have no space on Switch are Brain Age and Nintendogs, while sales for Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, etc kept consistent in both DS and 3DS despite 3DS selling a half of DS and on Switch all those games are selling just as much or better than DS or 3DS

However when it comes to Wii Games a set of games that brings in over 20% (a number you are so unaware of how big it is in the context of software sales) of all Wii software purchases are are mostly absent with only ONE game selling "on pair" with all those kind of games

Almost all other franchises you are quoting, Mario Kart, (New) Super Mario Bros, Mario Party are among the best sellers of any Nintendo system, either handheld or home console. If their existence does not catapulted Wii U sales I don't see why would they increase Switch sales. While Mario (mainly 3D Mario) has a very huge fandom and people who quite buy Nintendo to play them the absolute majority of Mario Party and Mario Kart sales seems to scale based on userbase, they are the perfect games to "complete your game collection" rather than "a game you buy a system for", so they absolute not explain Switch sales, nor explain why Wii U flopped

That's why I see a strong correlation with DS/3DS userbase and Switch userbase

But much weaker correlation with Wii userbase compared to Switch userbase, that's why I stated Wii userbase have a "minor impact on Switch sales" (minor compared to other groups like DS-3DS and PS-Xbox)

4) Well, if half of Switch owners also own Xbox and PS4 why shouldn't I say Switch owners comes from Xbox and PS4 owners? 

Granted Switch is selling much better than any Nintendo hardware ever (minus DS) and how a very significant part of Switch owners also have Playstation and Xbox I'd say Switch is selling well exactly because of that. 

I started this whole discussion because you seems to believe Sony/MS console owners are the minor factor here, while believing previous Nintendo owners + newcomers are the major factor for Switch sales 

When I believe it's a bit more complicated. Handheld userbase come in droves, checked, but home console owners? Switch top selling games list seems to have more in common with any other Nintendo home console than Wii, exaclty because of the absence of so many Wii Sports kind of games filling their best sellers list



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The_Liquid_Laser said:
JWeinCom said:

Gotta admit, I'm a bit irked. Cause this feels a bit evasive, and I feel I wasted my time in replying. 

There isn't any context I missed or misunderstood. I generally find semantic argument about labels, such as what counts as arcade or not to be incredibly dull and pointless. If two people agree on terms, then that's all that matters. So, while I understand your discussion about arcade vs accessibility, I did not respond to that part.

The question of where Switch sales likely came from is a question that can be answered with facts, data, and logic, and is one that I thought might be worth discussing. That's the point I chose to comment on. Whether the Switch sales came from the PS4 and Xbox 1 as you stated is a factual claim that stands on its own independent of any context. The Switch sales came from the PS4 or they did not, and what Rol means by "arcade evolution" is completely irrelevant to that point. Whether the Switch is as accessible as the Wii is at best tangentially related to the claim.  

I'll give the benefit of the doubt that this was not an attempt to be evasive. So, kindly answer these yes or no questions.

1. Did you say "these "new" sales the Switch is getting are not coming from the Wii. The extra sales are coming from the PS4 and XB1 crowd"?

2. Was my post responsive to this claim? I.e. did it propose reasons why we either should or should not accept that claim?

If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then you should either explain why my counterargument is not sound, or concede that the extra sales are not likely from the PS4 crowd. Alternatively, you can say "I'm not going to defend the point, and you wasted your time replying". But, don't tell me that I somehow "missed the context" when I am directly addressing a claim you made. 

"So, while I understand your discussion about arcade vs accessibility, I did not respond to that part."

By your own admission you ignored most of my post.  Now you are irked that I am ignoring your post.  You are irked that I did the same thing that you did.  

If you are ignoring most of my post then you are actually missing the point of what I am saying.  Perhaps, now you will understand why I didn't bother replying to you either.

My bad for assuming you it was an honest misunderstanding. Clearly I was wrong.

By your own admission you ignored most of my post.  Now you are irked that I am ignoring your post.  You are irked that I did the same thing that you did.  

Nope, I absolutely did not.

I responded to every part of your post to Pyroasbill about where the Switch's sales came from. I broke it down paragraph by paragraph and responded to each part (except the bit about ring fit). So, this is a lie. Anyone can go back a page and see for themselves. I'm actually very good about responding to pretty much everything a person says, or at least explaining why I don't think a particular point warrants a response, so I resent this accusation.

What I did not do was go back another page to a previous post you had made to a different user that had nothing to do with whether the Switch sales were from Wii or PS4 owners. I didn't do that because that would be absolutely ridiculous. 

The one who is literally ignoring all but one line of a post, as you've done twice, is you, so cut the hypocrisy please. 

You are irked that I did the same thing that you did.

You made a claim. I made a reply in good faith that directly addressed that claim. When someone directly addresses a claim in a good faith respectful manner, you are generally expected to respond. Because otherwise you're wasting their time, because you brought up a point you had no interest in discussing, and they spent time replying think you were interested in actually discussing it.

On the other hand, if you respond to a user's post, as I did, you are not also obligated to respond to a previous post about something completely different. I don't have to debate what Rol means by arcade evolution to discuss where the Switch's sales are coming from, and it's ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

If you are ignoring most of my post then you are actually missing the point of what I am saying.

Which I didn't do, but you are doing.

Perhaps, now you will understand why I didn't bother replying to you either.

Yes, I understand perfectly. You made a claim you couldn't back up, and are disingenuously avoiding it. I asked you point blank if you made a claim and if my post was directly responsive to it. You could not deny that you did and I did, so you've gone the faux outrage route to squirm out of it.

If you wish to actually respond in good faith to the points I made about where the Switch's sales are coming from I'll reply (I'm not like super jazzed about it, but when I make a claim I am generally willing to defend it), but I'm not going to waste any more time trying to get you to defend a point you clearly cannot defend. 

So, if your next post to me is not about how we can determine where Switch sales are coming from, then don't post it, cause that will be considered derailing. Yes, I am taking the last word here, but you've wasted a bunch of my time so we'll call it even. If you have a burning desire to respond, PM.  

Last edited by JWeinCom - on 02 April 2021

RolStoppable said:

I haven't had much time to come here this week, but here are a few points in response to the development of this thread:

1. The origins of video games in the arcades and on home computers are where their differences are the most pronounced, because afterwards these two branches take cues from each other and begin to blend together instead of having a very clear distinction between them. This is a lot like it has happened to video game genres where nowadays it's commonly hard to define where one genre ends and another one begins.

2. The attitude towards Wii gamers continues to be strange, as if those people were some sort of aliens who would only ever play games called Wii-something. JWeinCom provided comprehensive counter-arguments, but I don't think that will change anything for the people who are convinced that Wii gamers are not real gamers, therefore they believe the hardware and software sales boosts for Switch must come from PS and Xbox gamers, because they are real gamers.

3. The_Liquid_Laser has a horse in this race and that's his conviction that Switch will cut significantly into PS5 sales, leaving Sony with lifetime figures of less than 80m this generation. This of requires that a lot of PS4 gamers choose a Switch over the PS5, so consequently it should already be PS4 owners who have bought Switch consoles in droves. There are ownership statistics, but they first and foremost concern countries where multiconsole-ownership is common, so they don't tell us much more than people buying Sony and Nintendo again after the previous generation where most people skipped the Wii U. In any case, this is one of those situations where I think why should I bother to argue when time itself will solve this one in my favor.

4. There is no single source of gamers who are boosting Switch's hardware and software sales. However, some groups are much more logical than others. This includes any owners of previous Nintendo consoles (home and/or handheld) because this shows in the best-selling software. The reason why Wii owners are likely to contribute a big chunk is because the Wii itself sold more units than most other Nintendo consoles, plus Wii owners themselves were commonly returning gamers from the NES and SNES. But whatever way you want to slice it, any conclusion other than owners of previous Nintendo consoles accounting for the lion share of Switch's hardware and software sales is delusional.

5. The commotion about Switch being in the same column as the Wii is annoying, because apparently it's fine that Switch and the SNES are in the same column, or that the SNES and Wii are in the same column. There's something strange going on here.

6. Regarding what I've labeled as generation 3 in my OP, indeed, the generational cycle wasn't as clearly defined as later on. Still, the Atari 5200 was a successor because it was incompatible with the Atari 2600 and the two consoles also released five years apart. But I grant that the Intellivision may belong to generation 2 rather than 3 if it really released in 1979. That would put gen 2 launches in the window 1976 to 1979 and gen 3 launches in the window 1981 to 1982. But some oddities like these persisted through generation 5, because consoles like the CD-i and Jaguar also sit more or less between two generations when only the major systems are considered.

If you want the TL:DR version of my post this is it. If we're trying to figure out who's buying Nintendo consoles and Mario/Smash/Ring Fit/whatever for it, our first guess should be people who have bought Nintendo systems and games in those franchises in the past. The largest number of those people by far were Wii/DS owners, so that's the most reasonable explanation and it'd take some pretty heavy evidence to the contrary to counter it. Trying to suggest it's the PS4/XBox One audience who favors entirely different games is bizarre. Trying to argue that it's more of the the 25 millionish people who owned an N64 but haven't bought a Nintendo console in 21-25 years rather than the 100 million people who purchased a Wii 5-10 years ago is even weirder.  

Dunno why some people are so resistant to this. It's like you left your a plate of lasagna on your kitchen table, you come back and find it missing, and Garfield and Jennifer Lawrence are in the kitchen. And you're like "DAMN YOU JENNIFER LAWRENCE, WHY DID YOU EAT MY LASAGNA?!"

IcaroRibeiro said:
JWeinCom said:

1. If you take out Wii Sports and Wii Play (people chose to spend ten bucks for it I guess, but still shouldn't count IMO) then the only "Wii games" that put out huge numbers are Wii Fit/Plus and Sports Resort. So it's really two games you're talking about. One of which has a pseudo sequel that's selling very well. 

And, if you take Wii Sports out of the picture, the top selling games are Mario Kart, Wii Sports Resort, NSMB Wii, Smash, Wii Fit, Super Mario Galaxy, Just Dance, Wii Party, and Mario Party 8.

With the exception of Sports resort and Just Dance (which I'm only excluding for lack of data, although I guess if it was truly doing amazing Ubisoft would have said something) those are pretty much the same kinds of games that are doing well on Switch. They'll all have 10 million plus selling sequels or spiritual successors on the Switch, so that indicates similar people are buying the system. 

2. When you start by saying "I know it's anecdotal evidence, but" that's where you should stop. 

3. How to explain those 30 million hardware not bought (yet) for 8th generation despite the marketing increase in all kinds of metrics?

I don't have to, because nobody was arguing that the Switch recaptured 100% of the Wii audience. That's not the question we were addressing. We're addressing why the Switch is selling so much better than the Wii U and 3DS.

4. I guess I might now have make myself clear, for Wii-only gamers I wasn't talking about gamers who have Wii but not PS3 or X360, but to newcomers, gamers who got into gaming because of Wii games (mostly Wii Sports games, as those sells humongous numbers) and they seem to account for some relevant part of that generation market.

...

For me, those are more likely the Wii owners who got into games like Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wii Resort, etc. I don't see this crowd buying Switch massively so far indeed the only game that look remotely close to Wii is Ring Fit and this game it's not going to be nowhere near as Wii Sports despite Switch being very likely to outsell Wii in 2021 already. If those gamers are Wii Sports crowd they might be really slow to pick Ring Fit

You claimed half the user base "comes from PS4 or XBox One" because Switch owners own those systems (regardless of whether or not they owned any other consoles)... but, if someone who owned a Wii buys a Switch, it doesn't count unless they only owned the Wii and nothing before and even then, they only really count if they were one of the people who bought it for Wii Sports/Fit... 

You've sort of stacked the deck there, haven't you? Let's use the same standard for all the systems. How many Switch sales do you think are coming from people who entered the market with the PS4? 

1) You analysis adds absolutely nothing to the debate. I excluded Wii Sports because it was bundled so it was sell well regardless people bought their Wii for play this kind of game or if they bought their Wii to play Mario or Zelda. If I want to make an analysis of how much people bought the Wii mainly for Wii Sports type of game I need to first rule out the game that has an almost mandatory admission.

And when we ignore Wii Sports (which you said to do) and Wii Play (also bundled), then 8 of the top ten franchises on the Wii are represented on the Switch by entries (or spiritual successors in the case of Wii Fit) that will sell 10 million copies. How is that not relevant?

2) Since you won't believe I don't know who do you expect those gamers to be. The first Sony console was released in 1994 and while I believe it was the first console of many gamers in several European, Latin and east asian countries there is absolute no way for it to be the same in Japan and USA. As for Xbox I don't think there isn't a thing to prove about it, Xbox was first released only in 2002, unless you are younger than 20 I will hardly believe it was the only console you ever played in your life.  

I really don't know what you're trying to say here. All I said was not to use anecdotal evidence. I'm sure your friends are real, but talking to a couple of friends isn't market research. I worked at Best Buy during the height of the Wii craze. I got way more anecdotes than you about what Wii gamers were like, but I'm not going to spout em off, cause they're anecdotes.

3) I understand you want to explain why Switch sales are great, while Wii U flopped and 3DS underperformed compared to DS

Well  DS owners being very present on Switch really makes sense to me, the only very well selling DS games that have no space on Switch are Brain Age and Nintendogs, while sales for Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, etc kept consistent in both DS and 3DS despite 3DS selling a half of DS and on Switch all those games are selling just as much or better than DS or 3DS

You're factually wrong here. Mario Kart did not sell consistently, its sales dropped by about 8 million. Pokemon sales dropped by about 2 million from Diamond and Pearl to X/Y, but the drop is larger when you account for Pokemon Platinum (XY didn't have a third version, so presumably some Platinum only players would have purchases DP if there weren't a third option). New Super Mario Bros sales dropped by more than half. Mario Party by more than half. Mario and Luigi, Kirby, dropped too. Animal Crossing is the only game that sold as well or better on the DS to my knowledge. Also, Brain Age is available on Switch. Not selling nearly what it did back then, so if that's how you're judging things, you'd have to count that against lapsed DS owners accounting for the Switch's sales.

The 3DS sold about 75 million. If we assume they're accountable for a large portion of the Switch base (which is absolutely reasonable), then, first off, we already have a lot of Wii user in the mix who kept buying Nintendo machines. Second of all, we have to explain why Switch sales will be  so much higher than the 3DS, and why games that saw a huge drop from the Wii/DS to the 3DS are suddenly selling a whole lot better. I'm fine with the idea that past DS owners and past Wii owners are both responsible, but there's a huge amount of overlap in that group. 

The weird thing is that you seem really open to the possibility that DS owners who lapsed are represented on the Switch, even though 2 huge franchises are not on the Switch yet, but are so reluctant to make the same conclusion about the Wii because Wii Sports isn't represented (again it's the only 10m+ Wii _______ franchise not represented on the Switch aside from Wii Play which I refuse to count).

It's just a weird stance where anybody but Wii owners could be responsible for Switch sales. 

However when it comes to Wii Games a set of games that brings in over 20% (a number you are so unaware of how big it is in the context of software sales) of all Wii software purchases are are mostly absent with only ONE game selling "on pair" with all those kind of games

Uhhhh... wasn't I the one who brought this up XD? I know exactly how big twenty percent is in context. It's 20 percent. One out of five. That's how ratios work. And btw that number only works if you count Wii Sports, so make up your mind if you want to use that. If you take Wii Sports out of the equation the number actually drops to 11% which is less than Mario games. Consistency man! 

My point is that 4/5 games were not part of the Wii _______ line. For example, about 14.5% (15.6% sans Wii Sports) of the Wii sales were from Mario games, which also a huge number, if even not as huge (unless you want to not count Wii Sports in which case it is actually huger). So, we can conclude that a lot of people probably bought a Wii for Mario, and it seems reasonable that these people may buy another console for Mario games in the future. Or, alternatively, people bought a Wii for Wii Sports and then bought other series and became fans of those as well. And it seems plausible that maybe some of those people Switched over.

Almost all other franchises you are quoting, Mario Kart, (New) Super Mario Bros, Mario Party are among the best sellers of any Nintendo system, either handheld or home console. If their existence does not catapulted Wii U sales I don't see why would they increase Switch sales. While Mario (mainly 3D Mario) has a very huge fandom and people who quite buy Nintendo to play them the absolute majority of Mario Party and Mario Kart sales seems to scale based on userbase, they are the perfect games to "complete your game collection" rather than "a game you buy a system for", so they absolute not explain Switch sales, nor explain why Wii U flopped

As for why they would drive sales on the Switch but not the Wii, there are pretty obvious potential reasons. First off, the games weren't available on the Wii U as quickly. In the first year of the Wii U, NSMB was the only one of its major sellers that was available. A year with only one big title is pretty bad and creates a really negative buzz. 

3D World didn't hit until just after a year, Mario Kart until a year and a half, Smash about 2 years in, and Mario Party about 2 and a half. In that first couple of years there was really very little else on the system either. There was Pikmin which is on the niche side, Wonderful 101 (brilliant but a flop), Lego City undercover, and Game and Wario which was planned as a pack in but bombed cause it was bad. And Nintendoland, another underappreciated title. An original Zelda didn't come till it was dead. 

In contrast, Mario Kart was available a month into the Switch's lifespan, Zelda (which mind you sold nearly 8 million on the Wii) was there from day 1, 3D Mario was present in less than half a year. While these were doing the heavy lifting, you also had Splatoon and Arms (not available on the Wii but likely had some appeal to the Wii base, albeit not nearly as much as those other titles) and Xenoblade Chronicles at the end of the first year. Then about a year and a half in you got Mario Tennis and Super Mario Party. You also had Pokemon Let's Go at the end of the year. Of course, the Pokemon franchise was more of a handheld thing, but there's definitely an overlap between the DS/Wii user base. And then Smash Ultimate.

So, that's one reason. The games got there quicker. The Switch had sequels to a 5+, 10+, and 30+ million sellers on Wii within the first 7 months, plus some other stuff that might appeal to that fanbase to a lesser extent. Wii was riding on New Super Mario Bros for a year. By the time it got some of the big hitters, people had already written off the Wii U as a failure.

There's also the fact that the games on the Switch were just better than their Wii U counterparts. Wii Fit and Wii Sports were on the Wii U, but they didn't push sales = either... because they fucking sucked. 

Wii Fit Plus was a sequel you could only buy digitally that added like 10 minigames and a pedometer, while Ring Fit is a novel new game that is ambitious and a much improved workout. New Super Mario Bros was a paint by numbers sequel. Super Mario 3D World was an bigger multiplayer version of the 3DS game (which was still pretty good), while Mario Odyssey was an ambitious new take on Mario. Mario Party 10 featured the crappy car mechanic that 8 started, while Super Mario Party is generally considered the best entry in the franchise in at least a decade. Even Mario Kart 8, which is largely a port is a bit better with its battle mode and DLC included (not saying it's a huge difference but it helps), and Smash Ultimate was much better received than Wii U (EVERYONE WAS THERE).

So, the games were available early enough for the Switch to make a good first impression, and were by and large higher quality and more ambitious entries in the franchise.

Also, the Wii U was generally a poorly designed (or at least implemented) system with confusing marketing, an ultimately unnecessary central gimmick, confusing multiplayer setup (which really did work well in the one game that used it), and a kind of bulky offputting controller. 

So, Wii owners didn't want to buy a crappy system that didn't get a decent library until two plus years into its life (if it ever did), but that doesn't mean they wouldn't buy a well designed console that had a decent library from the start.

That's why I see a strong correlation with DS/3DS userbase and Switch userbase.

But much weaker correlation with Wii userbase compared to Switch userbase, that's why I stated Wii userbase have a "minor impact on Switch sales" (minor compared to other groups like DS-3DS and PS-Xbox)

And you don't think there is a strong correlation between the Wii, DS, and 3DS userbases? You think the 100 million people who bought the Wii were completely distinct from the 150 million who bought a DS  (the difference really isn't that big when you consider hardware revisions, fragility of portables, software sales, and multiple DS households)?

These aren't mutually exclusive categories. If there's a strong correlation between DS and Switch, the correlation's gotta be fairly strong with the Wii too.

4) Well, if half of Switch owners also own Xbox and PS4 why shouldn't I say Switch owners comes from Xbox and PS4 owners? 

Because...

a) 50% don't. It's "above 40%" and dropping fast according to the data.

b) There's no way to tell which was purchased first. They could be going from Switch to PS4.

c) The data we have is limited to one source that we only have a second hand account (tweet) of to my knowledge. And surveys can be really far off (see Biden v. Trump in Wisconsin), so you should stop stating this as a fact.

d) You seem to have an entirely different set of rules when it comes to the Wii. A Wii owner who had a Gamecube buys a Switch= NOTHING TO DO WITH WII. PS4 owner who had a Wii buys a Switch= ALL ABOUT THAT PS4 BABY!

e) Correlation does not equal causation. If we accept PS4 owners also own a Switch, that doesn't mean their purchase has anything to do with the PS4. 

f) We don't know how many Switch owners also owned a Wii, it can be way higher than 40%.

g) It flies in the face of what we're seeing in game sales.

h) The same source shows that at least 32% of Wii owners owned a PS360, so even if 100% of Switch owners had a Wii, we'd be seeing something similar with coownership.

i) I'm not sure how they're asking the question. I own a Switch and a PS4. My brother lives with me and owns a Switch, but he could play the PS4 whenever he wants but never has. If they ask him "do you have a PS4 in your household" or "do you own a PS4" those are going to yield different answers.

My sister owns a Switch and her husband has a PS4. I'm in a commonlaw property state. Don't think they have a prenup, at least one that says anything about gaming devices. Does she own a PS4? If we were the only Switch owners in the world, would they said 100% of Switch owners own a PS4, 33%, or 66%? Depending on how the question is phrased and interpreted you can get any of those answers. 

So lots of reasons which I already addressed :-/ If you have more information or details on this survey share them, but if not you should really stop putting it forth as fact. 

Granted Switch is selling much better than any Nintendo hardware ever (minus DS) and how a very significant part of Switch owners also have Playstation and Xbox I'd say Switch is selling well exactly because of that. 

 Let's take a trip back to two paragraphs ago.

"Almost all other franchises you are quoting, Mario Kart, (New) Super Mario Bros, Mario Party are among the best sellers of any Nintendo system, either handheld or home console. If their existence does not catapulted Wii U sales I don't see why would they increase Switch sales. While Mario (mainly 3D Mario) has a very huge fandom and people who quite buy Nintendo to play them the absolute majority of Mario Party and Mario Kart sales seems to scale based on userbase, they are the perfect games to "complete your game collection" rather than "a game you buy a system for", so they absolute not explain Switch sales, nor explain why Wii U flopped"

Reliable data shows that 40% of Switch owners bought Mario Kart 8 to play on their Switch- "This absolutely does not explain Switch sales."

According to a tweet one survey says 40% of Wii owners on PS41- "I'd say it's exactly because of that."

There is a really obvious inconsistency in your logic. 

....and you are now arguing that the best selling game on the Switch is not driving its sales. -_-... People are not buying the Switch to play the games they then play on the Switch. For fuck's sake. 

Again, the facts do not bear you out. Mario Kart 7 sold to 19 million 3DS owners. It's currently at 33 million on Switch. 

The user base has increased by 5 million, and Mario Kart sales increased by 14. Your suggestion, that it's simply scaling with the userbase, is a mathematical impossibility. This evidence pretty strongly suggests that Mario Kart 8 is indeed a major factor in why people are buying the Switch. Which should fall under the category of "dug".

I started this whole discussion because you seems to believe Sony/MS console owners are the minor factor here, while believing previous Nintendo owners + newcomers are the major factor for Switch sales 

Not exactly. Newcomers are harder to factor in. 

We have a good idea of what PS4 owners are likely to buy and a good idea of what Wii fans would likely buy. Newcomers are much harder to predict. 

So I'm not too sure how it breaks down between Wii and newcomers, but it seems pretty clear Wii owners are bigger than PS4 fans.

Handheld userbase come in droves, checked, but home console owners?

Like, I get that some people only play handhelds and some only console, but it's not like they're two warring tribes that will kill eachother on site. There's a huge overlap here, especially when one company's software is driving sales of both (i.e. Wii/DS)

Switch top selling games list seems to have more in common with any other Nintendo home console than Wii, exactly because of the absence of so many Wii Sports kind of games filling their best sellers list

Again, this just kind of shows the absurd inconsistency here.

When we look at the top 10 best selling franchises on the Wii, 8 of them have an direct or spiritual successor (Ring Fit) sequel on the Switch that has sold or will sell ten million copies.

Of the top 50 best selling games on PS4 (according to VGchartz Data) 0 have a Switch entry that will sell 10 million copies. 2 of them has a similar game that may sell over ten million on the Switch (one of them being Monster Hunter and the for the other one I'm considering Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy as being "similar" to Mario Odyssey, so that's how far we have to stretch to make this work). 

If you're basing this on top sellers, we'd have to conclude that virtually zero PS4 owners are buying the Switch.

And, the list is only more similar to other Nintendo machines when you consider relative positions of games. Which is not relevant when we're talking about absolute numbers.

Sure Mario Kart is the top selling game (I think I dunno if Animal Crossing beat it yet) on Switch and Gamecube. But that doesn't really matter because there were only 7 million people that bought Double Dash. They can't explain why Mario Kart is selling so much again. There just aren't enough of them.

If 100% of Gamecube owners did not buy a Wii and did buy a Switch and 25% of Wii owners bought a Switch, Wii owners still made the bigger impact. Even under this set of batshit crazy circumstances made to support your point, it fails.

We're at the point where you need to answer some binary questions to progress things, since you're bringing up the same points repeatedly and my responses are  getting ignored repeatedly. If you refuse to answer them (they're simple) then that's just a sign you are not arguing in good faith, and I'm done (plus I'm gonna feel like I won and my epenis will grow three sizes). You can in return ask any simple binary questions you feel need to be answered.

1. Does looking at the games that are selling well on two different systems help us to determine how similar their fanbases are?

2. If so, are the games that are selling well on the Switch more similar to those selling well on the PS4, or the Wii?

3. So, is it more likely that Switch owners came from those who were primarily Wii gamers, or those who were primarily PS4 gamers?

Last edited by JWeinCom - on 03 April 2021

JWeinCom said:

Taking the DS out of the equation for the moment to simplify things and sticking to the last two generations, what in the honest fuck would make you look at this and think "hmmm... I bet it's all of those PS4 fans driving the sales. You know how those PS4 fans love Mario, collecting bugs for a cartoon squirrel, and motion based fitness games..."?

Every gamer comes to the realisation that Little Big Planet isn't actually that good eventually.



Nov 2016 - NES outsells PS1 (JP)

Don't Play Stationary 4 ever. Switch!

Pyro as Bill said:
JWeinCom said:

Taking the DS out of the equation for the moment to simplify things and sticking to the last two generations, what in the honest fuck would make you look at this and think "hmmm... I bet it's all of those PS4 fans driving the sales. You know how those PS4 fans love Mario, collecting bugs for a cartoon squirrel, and motion based fitness games..."?

Every gamer comes to the realisation that Little Big Planet isn't actually that good eventually.

Not sure I quite get the (I assume) joke here. Is it that Little Big Planet has a lot of Nintendo style levels? 

Although, honestly, I stopped playing Little Bit Planet after one level. I don't especially like making things and I didn't like the physics. 

I played Mario Maker for a bit, but got sad at how much better everyone's levels were than mine :(.



JWeinCom said:

f) We don't know how many Switch owners also owned a Switch, it can be way higher than 40%.

I'd say it's pretty likely that far higher than 40% of Switch owners also owned a Switch. Seriously you've made good posts in this thread but I can't help but chuckle at bits like this lol.