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

Teriol said:

Nintendo will produce Switch 1 till 2027 so 160 million or more is now locked.

Depends how many units?

If iam not incorrect sony still makes ps'4s



 

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Teriol said:

Nintendo will produce Switch 1 till 2027 so 160 million or more is now locked.

That doesn't mean it's locked if the amount produced is low. The DS was produced for over a couple years after the 3DS came out but even though shipments were at 146.4m by the end of March 2011 they only reached 154m in the end. The Switch is actually shipping less than the DS did post successor so far when it needs to be shipping more to have any chance at 160m. If it meets the forecast and is at 156.1m by the end of March even matching the DS going forward would only get it to 158.6m so it'd need to suddenly go from performing worse to performing notably better.



Teriol said:

Nintendo will produce Switch 1 till 2027 so 160 million or more is now locked.

Lmao, locked? 



With November out of the way, with only 360k units sold, the chances grew even slimmer. Both for the 160M and for December to be something way stronger.



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

XtremeBG said:

With November out of the way, with only 360k units sold, the chances grew even slimmer. Both for the 160M and for December to be something way stronger.

Yeah it's over 50% lower than the DS's November 2011 and about 60% lower than the 3DS's November 2017 so it might not even sell a million in total this holiday which should put to bed any remaining hopes anyone has of it getting there. That one person who voted for below 1m in your thread might end up being the only correct voter which I did not think was a possibility.

Last edited by Norion - on 17 December 2025

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Norion said:
Fight-the-Streets said:

There is the pure business side, and then there is brand awareness. Don’t forget that a brand’s function is not only to make as much money as possible; it is also meant to be imprinted in people’s minds as a lifestyle product (or whatever “style” it is supposed to represent), creating brand awareness that lasts many years into the future.

Besides the product itself, there are many elements—both small and large—that contribute to this desired brand awareness. Being the brand that sold the most consoles worldwide would be one such element. Why would you let that opportunity slip when it can be achieved relatively easily with just a small push (price cuts, bundles, etc.)?

Another factor is ego. Don’t believe for a second that Nintendo’s management has no ego. Even if the title of “most sold console” isn’t economically crucial, it certainly matters to ego. If you work day in, day out in the video game console (and software) business, you naturally want your console to be the best-selling one ever—on top of being the most profitable. Just think about it: if we fanboys have an ego tied to our beloved console (or console manufacturer), then executives at these companies surely do as well—an ego multiplied by 10, 100, or even 1,000.

Nintendo has also just expanded into Southeast Asia, a market with many low-income households. Many people in this region simply cannot afford a Switch 2. The Switch 1, however, surely still has some steam left for those consumers.

They let the opportunity slip before with the DS when they could've just pushed it somewhat more to overtake the PS2. Perhaps the current leadership feels differently about it this time but in general they don't care as much about this sort of thing nearly as much as us nerds online do. If they wanted to make sure the Switch beats the PS2 they wouldn't have increased its price in the US a few months ago.

  1. I love the DS, but it’s a toy—who would care if a toy sold more units than the "mature" PS2? Let’s say the DS had sold 180 million units; most people would have said, "Well, it’s a cheap toy—of course it has the potential to outsell a "mature" home console."

  2. The handheld market has always been separate from the home console market. Yes, it drew some attention when the PS2 and DS were neck and neck in sales, but ultimately it was meaningless. For Nintendo, there was no added value in giving the DS a final push to overtake the PS2—there was nothing to gain and nothing meaningful to compare, because these were two fundamentally different markets.

    The situation with the Switch and the PS2 would be the same if Nintendo still had a proper home console in its lineup. In that case, the comparison would again be meaningless. However, since the Switch is the one and only Nintendo console of the ninth generation (or the eighth, depending on how you define it), and since it is a hybrid console, it is competing directly in the home console market. Therefore, the sales comparison with the PS2 makes complete sense—and the sales record actually matters to Nintendo.

As for the recent price increase of the Switch: this is largely due to tariffs, which are being used to partially offset the price increase the Switch 2 would otherwise have faced. Tariffs are a higher-level issue and outside of Nintendo’s direct control. There will still be opportunities in the future to lower the price of the Switch or to offer attractive bundles.



Fight-the-Streets said:
Norion said:

They let the opportunity slip before with the DS when they could've just pushed it somewhat more to overtake the PS2. Perhaps the current leadership feels differently about it this time but in general they don't care as much about this sort of thing nearly as much as us nerds online do. If they wanted to make sure the Switch beats the PS2 they wouldn't have increased its price in the US a few months ago.

  1. I love the DS, but it’s a toy—who would care if a toy sold more units than the "mature" PS2? Let’s say the DS had sold 180 million units; most people would have said, "Well, it’s a cheap toy—of course it has the potential to outsell a "mature" home console."

  2. The handheld market has always been separate from the home console market. Yes, it drew some attention when the PS2 and DS were neck and neck in sales, but ultimately it was meaningless. For Nintendo, there was no added value in giving the DS a final push to overtake the PS2—there was nothing to gain and nothing meaningful to compare, because these were two fundamentally different markets.

    The situation with the Switch and the PS2 would be the same if Nintendo still had a proper home console in its lineup. In that case, the comparison would again be meaningless. However, since the Switch is the one and only Nintendo console of the ninth generation (or the eighth, depending on how you define it), and since it is a hybrid console, it is competing directly in the home console market. Therefore, the sales comparison with the PS2 makes complete sense—and the sales record actually matters to Nintendo.

As for the recent price increase of the Switch: this is largely due to tariffs, which are being used to partially offset the price increase the Switch 2 would otherwise have faced. Tariffs are a higher-level issue and outside of Nintendo’s direct control. There will still be opportunities in the future to lower the price of the Switch or to offer attractive bundles.

Mate it's nearly 80% down this November compared to last year. I get that you really want it to beat the PS2 but it's time to face reality here. There will be no more opportunities for that cause it's abundantly clear that they're done pushing the Switch 1. They've made basically no effort at selling it this holiday season since they're doing the smart thing and are immediately shifting focus over to the Switch 2 instead of trying to break a record that only nerds like us care about.



November sales are 87% down YoY for USA, 82% down YoY for Europe and 62% down YoY for Japan.

For the full year global sales are going to be around 60% down YoY. Even if Nintendo somehow managed to get the YoY drops for each future year to only be 45%, they'd still never reach 160m.



Fight-the-Streets said:

Therefore, the sales comparison with the PS2 makes complete sense—and the sales record actually matters to Nintendo.

Really ?

And because the record actually matter to Nintendo, they did what ?

They did a price cut of 100$ two years ago ? one year ago ? they did 50$ price cut this year ?

Oooh .. right. They did price increase, although they could afford even doing 100$ price cut, with the billions of profit they made through out all of the Switch generation. They even discontinued the Mario kart 8 bundle that was around for how much 7 ? 8 years ? 

Yea, it surely matters to Nintendo. 



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

Getting grim for this prediction.