So far, according to VGChartz data ending in September, the Switch has sold near 1.8M units since March 31, 2025. (With this we should see an official total shipment number near 153.92M)

Nintendo needs to ship 2.69M units from Oct 5, 2025 to Mar 31, 2026.

So far in Japan for Oct there hasn’t been a boost in sales from Legends Z-A (unless the data given is the boost, in that case Switch is in a bad position, but for simplicity I’ll say there was just no boost in hardware). 

With Oct data, Switch has sold an additional 46.8k in 2 of the 4 weeks in the biggest selling area of the 4. Supposedly Japan will end up with ~95k. I suspect America and Other to have an increase in Switch hardware (from Sept) with 85k and 75k. Europe will probably sell near 70k.

In order for Nintendo to reach their 4.5M goal (if it doesn’t change to 4M on the 4th), Oct-Dec must sell near 2M and Jan-Mar must sell near 0.7M.

To sell 2M in Oct-Dec this would seem to be the best path: Oct 325k, Nov 750k, Dec 925k

To sell 0.7M in Jan-Mar this would seem to be the best path: Jan  325k, Feb 200k, Mar 175k

Ngl, it seems like an uphill battle. In order for this to not be such an uphill battle a couple things need to happen

1. Switch bundles (Legends Z-A, MK8D, each with NSO for 3 months)

2. Switch “discounts” V2@$249, Lite@$149, OLED@$299

3. New Switch skin for Legends Z-A, Kirby Air Riders, or Metroid Prime 4

How do you think Nintendo will make use (if they do) of the holiday season?

no, switch is #1

Funny that you mention price cuts: Switch received a U.S. price hike across all models in early-August. (But what was especially weird is how U.S. sales did not change at all in response…)

Anyways, I must agree that Z-A has done significantly less for NSW than B2/W2 for DS. This is likely being emphasized by (i) Pokémon’s poor reputation in performance quality on Switch and (ii) the similarity in price between NS1/NS2 versus DS/3DS.

Also, Shtinamin, did you by chance purchase Pokémon Z-A? (I see your Pokémon pfp and now I’m curious.) If so, how is it?

Nintendo better do something for the holidays sales

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't Black 2 / White 2 exclusive to the DS? This compares to Z-A which is also on the Switch 2. So if anyone wants to buy a console with Z-A it makes more sense to go with a Switch 2. There is a much cheaper Switch 2 SKU in Japan (region locked) that isn't available anywhere else in the world.

As far as the Switch topping 160 million and the PS2? It is looking less likely with how much sales have dropped the last few month, but I wouldn't say impossible. It depends how sales are this holiday. Just under 5 million Switch 1s were sold from October to December 2024. if sales are down by 50% we are talking around 2.5 million sold for the rest of the year. 

That’s another good point: B2/W2 was only released on DS. And while 3DS is backward compatible (meaning B2/W2 is playable on both device), it’s not as though there was any major differences between playing on 3DS versus DS, unlike NS2 versus NS1 regarding Z-A.

There was actually a significant impact. Adjustments might change things somewhat but for now it went from selling 70k in July to only 45k in August and 56k in September which is the same amount weekly as August since that's treated as a 5 week month here.

Hmm… I’m curious if there were adjustments to the July data? I thought I remember seeing U.S. weekly figures remaining unchanged between July and August; I even explicitly made note of it on an article. IDK I’m prolly just misremembering. In any case, it seems you are correct. My bad. (Though FWIW global figures were up MoM in August 2025…so I suppose Nintendo was somehow able to offset the drop in American data.)

Yeah it went up somewhat in Europe and Japan in August which made it slightly up from July overall. September went back down for Europe though while Japan increased again so for whatever reason it looks like there's been a small resurgence for it lately in just Japan.

Could just be consumers looking to play NS2 but not owning NS1 getting impatient waiting for stock. That’s my only guess, at least. Japan (unsurprisingly) seems to be the only country with stock issues at the moment.