Spreadsheet updated.

Switch hits 141.32m by March 2024. Nintendo projects 13.5m for the fiscal year ending March 2025. If this forecast is met (resulting in 154.82m LTD), then Switch passes the Nintendo DS (154.02m).

The high hardware forecast virtually rules out the launch of the Switch successor by March 2025. A new Switch SKU may be introduced this fiscal year.

The question is, is this new forecast truly for Switch 1, or is it for the combined sales of the new successor and the Switch we have now ?

This is obviously just the current Switch. They only said the successor will be announced this fiscal year; there's a chance it won't be released until the next one. Nothing they've said implied this is for the two systems combined. 

The forecast is for Switch 1 only:  "Consolidated Financial Forecast - Nintendo Switch - FY25 Forecast: 13.5m"

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2024/240507_3e.pdf

The 13.5m forecast leaves me a bit buffling! I predicted 11m and thought that is already reaching, 12m would be the absolute highest I could see if all circumstances play out perfectly, but 13.5m that's just mind-boggling! At the same, Nintendo has no reason to forecast too ambitious numbers for the Switch's 8. year. How in the world can they reach these numbers? I guess all of the below has to play out:

1. Nintendo will have a (somewhat) big game for the holidays season
2. Switch 2 will not release in FY 25, i.e. not before April 1, 2025, most probably not before summer 2025 with even a holidays 2025 release possibility. In that point I'm pretty sure, Switch 2 will not release in FY 25.
3. Price cuts on all Switch SKU's
4. Holidays bundles
5. Pokémon Z-A will sell more consoles than I (we) think
(6. A new Switch SKU-model)

I agree on everything. I initially thought Pokemon Z-A would be cross-gen, but maybe it is not. That game is probably releasing in Q4, around January-March 2025.

Is it fair to say that the Switch is almost certainly going to surpass PS2 if Nintendo is successful in their 13.5mil FY goal? I see no possible way that this console will drop from 13.5mil to <6mil LTD. Especially when Legends Z-A will be releasing cross gen (meaning Nintendo might push Switch OG as the cheap alternative to next gen).

Seems like it's pretty much a lock that Switch will take the top-selling console crown. The only way it doesn't is if Nintendo just completely nukes the Switch after the successor launches.

Last year they predicted 15M and it was an under estimation, was surpassed by 0.7M.
13.5 would be a great hold. Id never guess more than 12M.

Yes, if the prediction of 13.5mil can be held, I even would casually bet my life on it (that the Switch will surpass the PS2 lifetime sales)!