By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sales - The Road to 160m+ for Nintendo Switch (EDIT: See mod note in first post for new rule).

We are days away from getting Nintendo's quarter 3 results. They will release that data on Feb 3. We will get shipment numbers through Dec 31st 2025. If anybody wants to make a prediction, for reference here is where the Switch is at compared to the DS .



Around the Network

@Chicho I would say that NS1 likely shipped more than a million last quarter since it is the holidays. Will pretty easily pass DS! One more target left after that.



Its really starting to run out of steam and the numbers to get ugly. While it will likely do around a million for this past quarter, that will be its last one with such a number. I expect the quarter ending March to be no more than 600k. Lifetime, 156M are a given. 157M very likely. I can even give it 158M. Not more.

Last edited by XtremeBG - on 01 February 2026

My primary threads:

Ultimate Showdowns: JP 2023 / JP 2024 / JP 2025 / JP 2026 / 2026 / 2025 / 2024 / 2023 / 20222021

Lifetime Showdowns: Global / Regional / Historical / YOY Charts / 150M+ Club Chart

Best holiday months / When will the Switch pass 160M? / LT expectations of: Switch / PS5 / XBSX / Switch 2

PAOerfulone said:

Based on Nintendo's own forecast, they anticipate Switch 1 being at 156.12 million units by the end of this fiscal year. It was at 1.89m units shipped as of Sept 30th for the fiscal year, so it has 2.11m left to reach that mark and meet their projections.

Based on the current data VGChartz has now, the Switch 1 has sold 811,700 units to consumers in Oct-Nov-Dec, and that's not counting America, Europe, and Rest of the World figures for December, so the actual total should be even higher than that.

But if we subtract that 0.81m total from the current LTD sold to consumers figure, that brings Switch 1 sold to consumer sales to 152.20m units. Divide THAT number by the shipped to retailers' figure - 154.01m, and that leaves us with a sell-through rate of 98.82475164%.

Now let's take the current VGChartz 'sold to consumers' figure - 153.01. If we divide that by the sell-through rate percentage above, that would put the lifetime shipment figure currently at 154.83 million units - Again, that's without December data for America, Europe, and the rest of the world.

Obviously, we won't know the exact figures of the other regions until we actually get them. But that doesn't we can't projected based on data we have now. And I have a good idea of how to do that!
Go to October, take Japanese sales, divide them by the worldwide sales, and that's your percentage rate of how much of Japan accounts for the worldwide sales.
Like this: Japan October sales (98.7k), divided by worldwide sales (280.4k) gives us a percentage rate of 0.3519971469.

Now do the same for November.
Japan sales (111.4k), divided by worldwide sales (377k) gives us 0.2954907162

Now comes the questionable but fun part! Take those two percentages, add them up, then divide by 2: That's the (my) projected December percentage rate for Japan. Which is 0.3237439316.

Now take the Japan December sales (184.3k), divide that by the projected December rate I just listed. That gives as a worldwide estimate of 569.3k units for the month of December.

Add that 569.3k figure the ones we already have for October (280.4k) and November (377k) and that should give us a sold to consumers estimate of 1.2267m units, or 1.23m units if you want to round up, for the Oct-Nov-Dec quarter.

But wait! We're not done! No take THAT number and divide it by the .9882475164 sell-through rate I mentioned before. And that should give us an estimate of 1.24m units shipped for the holiday quarter.

Add THAT to the current lifetime figures and Switch 1 should be at no less than 155.25 million lifetime units shipped as of December 31st.
Finally, subtract the 1.24m projected figure from the 2.11m left that Switch 1 needs to sell in order to meet Nintendo's projections, and it would need to ship 870k in this last quarter for them to meet that 4m figure.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TL:DR - That's A LOT of figures I just presented, and there's a very good chance that the projections are WAY off. But in short, 155.25m should be the number to look out for when the Nintendo's next earnings release hits on Feb 3rd. If it meets or exceeds that, and, more importantly, if Nintendo maintains their projected figures or better yet, if they raise them, there's still hope.

Now that we've got full numbers for the full quarter, let's revisit this.

For Q4 2025, we have an estimate of 1,448,481 units sold or 1.45 units if you want to be technical.

Subtract that from the 153.55 lifetime figures we have now and that's 152.10 million units sold as of Sept 30th.

Divide THAT by the 154.01 million shipped and we get 98.75982079%

Divide 153.55 by .9875982079 and that gives us an estimate of 155.48 million units shipped as of Dec 31, 2025. (1.47m units shipped for Q4 and 3.36m units for the Fiscal Year with one quarter to go and needing 640k units shipped for them to meet their revised goal of 4 million units shipped for the entire Fiscal Year.)

----------------------------

TL;DR again - 155.48 million should be the number to look for on the 3rd when Nintendo releases their latest figure.



PAOerfulone said:
PAOerfulone said:

Based on Nintendo's own forecast, they anticipate Switch 1 being at 156.12 million units by the end of this fiscal year. It was at 1.89m units shipped as of Sept 30th for the fiscal year, so it has 2.11m left to reach that mark and meet their projections.

Based on the current data VGChartz has now, the Switch 1 has sold 811,700 units to consumers in Oct-Nov-Dec, and that's not counting America, Europe, and Rest of the World figures for December, so the actual total should be even higher than that.

But if we subtract that 0.81m total from the current LTD sold to consumers figure, that brings Switch 1 sold to consumer sales to 152.20m units. Divide THAT number by the shipped to retailers' figure - 154.01m, and that leaves us with a sell-through rate of 98.82475164%.

Now let's take the current VGChartz 'sold to consumers' figure - 153.01. If we divide that by the sell-through rate percentage above, that would put the lifetime shipment figure currently at 154.83 million units - Again, that's without December data for America, Europe, and the rest of the world.

Obviously, we won't know the exact figures of the other regions until we actually get them. But that doesn't we can't projected based on data we have now. And I have a good idea of how to do that!
Go to October, take Japanese sales, divide them by the worldwide sales, and that's your percentage rate of how much of Japan accounts for the worldwide sales.
Like this: Japan October sales (98.7k), divided by worldwide sales (280.4k) gives us a percentage rate of 0.3519971469.

Now do the same for November.
Japan sales (111.4k), divided by worldwide sales (377k) gives us 0.2954907162

Now comes the questionable but fun part! Take those two percentages, add them up, then divide by 2: That's the (my) projected December percentage rate for Japan. Which is 0.3237439316.

Now take the Japan December sales (184.3k), divide that by the projected December rate I just listed. That gives as a worldwide estimate of 569.3k units for the month of December.

Add that 569.3k figure the ones we already have for October (280.4k) and November (377k) and that should give us a sold to consumers estimate of 1.2267m units, or 1.23m units if you want to round up, for the Oct-Nov-Dec quarter.

But wait! We're not done! No take THAT number and divide it by the .9882475164 sell-through rate I mentioned before. And that should give us an estimate of 1.24m units shipped for the holiday quarter.

Add THAT to the current lifetime figures and Switch 1 should be at no less than 155.25 million lifetime units shipped as of December 31st.
Finally, subtract the 1.24m projected figure from the 2.11m left that Switch 1 needs to sell in order to meet Nintendo's projections, and it would need to ship 870k in this last quarter for them to meet that 4m figure.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TL:DR - That's A LOT of figures I just presented, and there's a very good chance that the projections are WAY off. But in short, 155.25m should be the number to look out for when the Nintendo's next earnings release hits on Feb 3rd. If it meets or exceeds that, and, more importantly, if Nintendo maintains their projected figures or better yet, if they raise them, there's still hope.

Now that we've got full numbers for the full quarter, let's revisit this.

For Q4 2025, we have an estimate of 1,448,481 units sold or 1.45 units if you want to be technical.

Subtract that from the 153.55 lifetime figures we have now and that's 152.10 million units sold as of Sept 30th.

Divide THAT by the 154.01 million shipped and we get 98.75982079%

Divide 153.55 by .9875982079 and that gives us an estimate of 155.48 million units shipped as of Dec 31, 2025. (1.47m units shipped for Q4 and 3.36m units for the Fiscal Year with one quarter to go and needing 640k units shipped for them to meet their revised goal of 4 million units shipped for the entire Fiscal Year.)

----------------------------

TL;DR again - 155.48 million should be the number to look for on the 3rd when Nintendo releases their latest figure.

With our estimates we are looking to shrink the gap between sold and shipped each quarter at this point as sales are shrinking. We are looking to have the gap drop to at least 1.7 million or below. We shall see where things are when Nintendo releases their earnings report in a few days and make any necessary adjustments. 



VGChartz Sales Analyst and Writer - William D'Angelo - I stream on Twitch and have my own YouTube channel discussing gaming sales and news, as well as posting random gaming content. Follow me on Bluesky.

I post and adjust the VGChartz hardware estimates, with help from Machina.

Writer of the Sales Comparison | Monthly Hardware Breakdown Monthly Sales Analysis | Marketshare Features, as well as daily news on the Video Game Industry.

Around the Network
Chicho said:

We are days away from getting Nintendo's quarter 3 results. They will release that data on Feb 3. We will get shipment numbers through Dec 31st 2025. If anybody wants to make a prediction, for reference here is where the Switch is at compared to the DS .

One might think Nintendo gave the DS an extra life year so it can move from 153.99M to above 154M haha. But in the Japan DS's sales stopped right at 32.99M right? Another funny thing is Switch's 154.01M vs DS's 154.02M. Everybody was wondering if the Switch had passed the DS before the latest quarter reveal. Some thought it had done it, others thought it hadn't. It was basically a tie in the end, and the funniest thing is that it was ALMOST a tie by a mere less 10k units shipped



Litle more then 5 mill to go, 160mil is easily in the bag.



 

My youtube gaming page.

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

xl-klaudkil said:

Litle more then 5 mill to go, 160mil is easily in the bag.

At that point it's anything else but easy.



My primary threads:

Ultimate Showdowns: JP 2023 / JP 2024 / JP 2025 / JP 2026 / 2026 / 2025 / 2024 / 2023 / 20222021

Lifetime Showdowns: Global / Regional / Historical / YOY Charts / 150M+ Club Chart

Best holiday months / When will the Switch pass 160M? / LT expectations of: Switch / PS5 / XBSX / Switch 2

I think itll be easy. They shipped 4 million last year, right? Just ship another 4 million. Problem damn solved. There is no reason not to. Ship 3.5 if it just HAS to be lower. Whatever. Then the next year ship another 2 million and be done with it



Total Championships: Nintendo - 4, Sony - 2, Atari - 1, Microsoft - 0, Sega - 0

Chicho said:

You should update that.



My primary threads:

Ultimate Showdowns: JP 2023 / JP 2024 / JP 2025 / JP 2026 / 2026 / 2025 / 2024 / 2023 / 20222021

Lifetime Showdowns: Global / Regional / Historical / YOY Charts / 150M+ Club Chart

Best holiday months / When will the Switch pass 160M? / LT expectations of: Switch / PS5 / XBSX / Switch 2