Whatever that means? How many pre-orders were available? 10,000? 100,000? 10,000,000?

Where did you get the New 3ds sales figures, by the way? I'm not doubting them, I would just enjoy seeing those myself. I didn't think we had figures for literally every iteration of 3ds, but I'd be happy to see them! Or did you just calculate how many 3ds were sold after the new lineup came out? If the second option, a lot of standard 3ds' would have also been sold during that period so the 15 million would be divided between all the iterations that were out at that point, but again if you have data breaking down each iteration I'd love to see that.

I believe it will become the best-selling console ever, so 150M-170M

For the Switch to drop off so much, many, many things need to go wrong.

1. In case of the Wii, casuals were switching to both Kinect and smartphones, the supply of games slowly dried up (though not as drastic as Rol often makes it out to be. I mean, at E3 2010 Nintendo announced Metroid Other M, Skyward Sword, a Kirby game (can't remember it's name), Goldeneye 007 Wii, so there were still a lot of games made for the Wii when it already started to drop. Just look at the Penny Arcade skit from that year: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/06/16/lets-get-ready-to-rummmmbllllle ) as they had now to support the Wii, DS, 3DS and the Wii U during a period of time. There will only be one successor and as such, the teams will not need to support 4 platforms at once.
2. PS4 dropped quickly because people were yearning for a pricecut. This was very visible whenever the price dropped of the PS4 for whatever promotion, as the sales jumped massively during those times in the later years. Had Sony dropped the price of the PS4 even just to $250 all the way back in 2018 or early 2019 and we'll have a PS4 who would have sold 130M+.
3. If there were some reasons to drop so strongly, we would see them well right now with the wait for the upcoming OLED model. But guess what: The weekly sales in Japan still have to drop below 60k despite it now has been 5 weeks since the OLED model has been announced and that without any big releases, which shows that demand is still very high, too high for it to almost get halved next year.

Long story short, there's no reason for the Switch to drop anywhere near that drastically. 20M I can get behind, but anything below 18M has no grounds in logic.

Whatever that means? How many pre-orders were available? 10,000? 100,000? 10,000,000?

Where did you get the New 3ds sales figures, by the way? I'm not doubting them, I would just enjoy seeing those myself. I didn't think we had figures for literally every iteration of 3ds, but I'd be happy to see them! Or did you just calculate how many 3ds were sold after the new lineup came out? If the second option, a lot of standard 3ds' would have also been sold during that period so the 15 million would be divided between all the iterations that were out at that point, but again if you have data breaking down each iteration I'd love to see that.

Tag. This will be another worth coming back thread in a year or so

While it is true that every console reaches a saturation point where it won't move alot of hardware anymore, I would like to remark that the Switch as a console is very unusual in the sense that it's a hybrid. Like with the Gameboy back in the day it's not a completely new concept, but for the first time it perfected it.

The true potential of the console isn't a known factor and it can't be compared to a traditional console like the PS4.
Yes, it started dropping, but not because of saturation alone, but because of anticipation of the OLED model and due to not as many people being in lockdown anymore.
That the console will drop harder than any other console ever period in the year where it's most anticipated tiltle will launch in addition to a already known variety of guaranteed multi million sellers, is simply unrealistic and a pipedream.

With an OLED version, Pokemon Gen 4 remake, Pokemon Legends, Splatoon 3, BOTW sequel, Switch (Base, Lite, OLED) price cuts and possibly a Switch Pro release, I don't see how it's possible for the switch to sell less than 135m LT. It will most likely end this year with a ~105m. so 35 mill to end of it's LT will not be a challenge really.

Worst case scenario (2021 start 79.87m):

• 2021: 24-26m (It's already at 9.18m shipment with 2 quarters left)
• 2022: 19-21m (~80% drop) Base and lite pricecut
• 2023: 9-11m  (~50%) Switch sequel releases.
• 2024-LT: 4-5m  (~40%)
• Total: 135-142m

This is incase all said games and price cuts don't help the switch gain sales.

Best case scenario:

• 2021: 25-27m
• 2022: 21-23m (~90%) Base and lite price cut
• 2023: 18-20m (~85%) OLED price cut, Switch Pro release(maybe)
• 2024: 10-12m (~50%) Switch sequel releases.
• 2025-LT: 2-4m (~25%)
• Total: 155-165m

I'll go with 145m atleast just to be safe.

Yeah. and really your worst case scenario there is probably a low ball worst case scenario. The top of your best case scenario I think is right on for the best case scenario. Generally agreed. There's no way it sells under 140m, and its unlikely it'll be under 150m. Good chance it hits 160m.

Worst case scenario is probably:

~104/105m by end of this year seems pretty common sense as the lowest it'll hit this year

~125m end of 2022 even if sales drop off strongly despite all the huge games coming out next year

Low 140 millions end of 2023 as a new Switch is announced for 2024 (spring or holiday season) and Switch gets last big year of games

End of 2024 Switch at maybe just under 150m if Switch 2 launches Spring 2024

Lifetime it'll trickle past 150m perhaps to DS ~154m

Best likely case (without Nintendo really trying to push sales):

~106m this year as holiday season this year compared to last year has much larger games and new model so should be bigger, but current quarter should be much lower than last year.

~128m end of 2022 Switch stays pretty strong with all the huge games coming out next year, and perhaps a price drop on original and OLED models as Nintendo moves to discontinue original model and replace it as $300 with OLED

~145 end of 2023 as last round of big games start hitting Switch, and maybe Nintendo even does a price cut and does the Nintendo Selects price cuts on a bunch of first party games.

~156m end of 2024 Switch starts dying in anticipation of Switch 2 coming out holiday 2024

Then it'll maybe hit 160m end of 2025 and trickle up close to 165m lifetime.

The hybrid aspect alone makes trying to draw a conclusion on past platforms unreasonable as it's effectively in two markets at once this means that NS is two userbases in one that some what overlap but not fully which means saturation point maybe higher for it compared to all prior platforms which can explain why even with out a price cut it's going to hit 100m and still selling at peak levels.

Simply put expect a massive drop when the is no successor in sight is some what questionable such a drop is more likely going to happen in 2023 than 2022 as next year could see a normal sales performance like 18-19m with the peak gone and even then that's 18-19m on top of a possible 104m that's 122m or so continued sales at a drop still see the platform hitting 135-140m.

The new week numbers are in. Switch is down yet again. Under 300k. Everything goes as planned