With them missing 11m and this low forecast I now think it's quite unlikely they beat the PS2. The possibility is not dead yet but they'd have to not just match but outright exceed the 4.5m forecast to still have any shot and Switch sales are already declining fast before the Switch 2 is even out. There's also that this forecast has two months pre-Switch 2 in it so the drop next fiscal year being even higher wouldn't be surprising at all.

It'll still be quite close in the end though and I've been expecting it to be close for quite some time. In the end the post successor decline will be a lot closer to the DS than the 3DS which is expected since the Switch is getting a direct successor that is backwards compatible like the DS did. Also this'll put an end to those silly predictions of it somehow reaching 170m or the later 160s.

That's not true. The people who expected the Switch to fall significantly short of the 13.5m forecast were right.

I agree the 170 and even 165 million is 0% chance now. Around 160 is probably best-case.

We will never truly know what sold most of PS2 and Switch.

Switch lives rent free in certain posters head, now all of a sudden this is a cliff lol. Like stop, the posters that are saying this silly stuff now are trying to realign themselves with "if it doesn't reach 160, we we were right lol". No, it will not be ignored that many of you were certain it wouldn't even reach 150. We know you are hurt, so reminder @Norion you once mentioned 140 million lol. You have no room to callout anyone that predicted 170, which includes you. The cliff never came and they along with you were wrong. Several people predicted the 13.5 million wouldn't be met unless they had something up their sleeves. It was leaked (the one Nintendo & GameFreak acknowledged publicly) that Pokemon ZA was ment to release late 2024. It didn't and that might have cost it. Regardless your initial predictions or anyone else's initial predictions won't be swept under the rug because your feelings are hurt over the cliff never coming and how many times your predictions needed to be adjusted up just like the more optimistic predictions had to be adjusted down. So let's get out your feelings and stop running this hilarious victory lap, trying to callout others. You can't do that when you were so far off base also.

~ User was moderated for this post and following exchange - tads12

I think best case scenario at this point is like 162 Million, worst case is 157 Million, but right now I'm leaning to right around 158 Million.

I've predicted for a while now that Switch shipments would reach 152m by March 31, 2025 and would pass the DS by the end of the year, both of which are on track. But the 4.5m forecast for Switch is a bit lower than the ~6m I had predicted. Since my estimates led to Switch finishing around 163m there is still room for that discrepancy to be able to pass 160.6m. But I'm also hoping that Nintendo's forecast was low-balled so as not to miss its target yet again.

Still hopeful for Switch to become number one, but if it misses its 4.5m target for this fiscal year, then its chances of beating the PS2 are over, barring a price drop in 2026.

I mentioned 140m being the absolute minimum for it back in 2021 with me expecting it to most likely end up in the 150's and having 170m as a high end expectation back then is completely different from thinking as recently as this year that that was still a possibility or even likely to happen. It's humorous that you of all people accuse someone of having their feelings hurt with how often you lose it over someone being negative towards Nintendo.

I'm not hurt at all really, I'm just enjoying myself and I've been pretty accurate with the Switch overall since I've been saying I expected it to either barely miss or barely beat the PS2 for a while so I have no idea what you're referring to with me being far off base with it. Like I expected it to be a big success as early as April 2017 so thinking I wanted it to fall off a cliff and am hurt that it never did till now is completely baseless. I've literally said that I think it'd be cool if it beat the PS2 and broke the record so really I have no idea where this nonsense is coming from.

Well it is time to make 'The road to 160m for nitnendo switch 2' thread now.

May i ask, why do nintendo fans care so much if  it outsells the ps2 or not?

For example ps2 is my favorite and in my eyes best console of all time,absolutely unbeatable.
If switch outsells it it doesnt change a thing.

I got some fierce pushback a few pages back when I modelled the drop in Switch sales off most generations to project 160 million wouldn't be such an easy or quick reach. By 'fierce pushback' some posters were just in total denial at the factual and historical basis I based my conclusions off and insulted me. It wasn't also the slowdown in sales, it's obvious Nintendo is barely supporting the console, not even the most hyped and desired ports of Zelda's and 3DS games people have hoped for.

I can only assume unless Nintendo really push the Switch Lite as a cheap portable option with plenty of games, even ports, for a few more years, and I doubt they plan to, then the dream of overhauling the PS2 is gone. They want to focus on the Switch 2 and do whatever it takes to make those sales as big as possible. Even if that means scrapping the Switch ASAP.

Why's that? I think Nintendo are only about around 20% off from their targets. Their drop in switch sales mirrors what happens for most generations and the Switch has barely any 1st party games coming out.