Different people start week 1 at a different place.  It's not that big of a deal as long as their method is consistent.

Ah I see that's where the extra figures are coming from. He includes week ending Jan 2nd as beginning of 2021 whereas VGC includes that as end of 2020.

Christopher Dring on Twitter

https://twitter.com/Chris_Dring/status/1460904766020722688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1460904766020722688%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=

Latest data from @PiersHR at Ampere estimates that, as of September 30 2021, Switch sales were at 89.7m, PS5 12.8m and Xbox Series S/X at 6.7m. They also comment how the S, in some markets, has out-sold the X. Indeed, I've seen numbers where S and X are basically 50/50

— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) November 17, 2021

Should these numbers be given any credibility? I've seen plenty of companies like Ampere giving estimates in the past that were horrifically wrong.

Thanks for this. Really puts things in perspective; Switch may have peaked in 2020 but it's still nearly 70% ahead of 2019 YTD and more than double 2018.

You know what stinks about sales impacted by shortages? They don't get made up for in the future. Say people want a Switch now, but can't find one until June 2022. The device is now over half a year older, less new, less exciting. Maybe those people have lost their enthusiasm by then, or found another hobby they like more while they waited. Many will still have it, but a decent amount will have emotionally calmed down about the device. In truth, we will never know how well this gen could have sold because there are going to be millions, maybe even tens of millions of people that give up because they can't find a PS5/OLED Switch/Series XS/Steam Deck and spend their money on something else to amuse themselves.

We are already seeing this in other industries. I doubt movie theaters will ever bounce back to the numbers they once had annually. People drive a whole lot less now too, and fly a lot less. Hobbies change when you aren't able to do the thing you wanted in the first place.

Maybe for end of life products like the switch. There might be a new switch by the time they get production sorted. But for the ps5 and series they just released. They will probably still he hot by the time production is better. It just really depends how long we really are talking about.

Even for them. We've had shortages since they came out and will last until at least early/mid 2022. That's 1.25-+ years of being hard to find. That's a long time for waiting. Plenty of people will have spent that money on something else, perhaps non gaming, with no intention of buying it when the shortages are over.

The roads in my area are seeing a lot more traffic now, and I'm starting to believe the people coming back onto the road forgot how to drive.  Or they just don't give an F, which I'm not sure which one is scarier.  I'm seeing an alarming number of people continuing through red lights well after the light has changed, and pulling up to fully red lights and then proceeding to make a left turn.  Things that I used to see very rarely in my work commute are now multi-daily events.

A lot more, sure, but many industries are going to permanently stay remote or hybrid model, so I doubt we will ever have as many driving in USA again as we did (especially with our pending population decline due to a sub-2.1 birth ratio).

Regarding bad driving, I'd say part of the blame is lack of driving lately, for sure, but I'd say the bigger problem is police shortages. If people know they won't get pulled over, or that it's less likely, they are a lot more inclined to do stupid, illegal, and unsafe things. The police shortages won't go away anytime soon since the profession as a whole continues to get blamed for things individual officers do. Who wants that kind of hate in their life? The places hating on police the most (larger cities) also probably see the most accidents and crazy drivers due to their population size. Sadly, this problem isn't getting resolved soon.