Switch's tie-ratio should be expected to easily surpass the Wii because it has Nintendo's unified output, a bigger and superior library of games, and it combines multiple advantages of both handhelds and home consoles. People often argued that there was a huge overlap between DS and Wii playerbases and therefore comparing them (hardware) combined to the Switch was unfair. But that argument very much goes hand in hand with expecting Switch to have a notably better tie-ratio than any Nintendo platform. It's not going to match the software numbers of DS and Wii combined, but becoming the number 1 Nintendo platform in tie-ratio should be a no-brainer at this point.

Mobile was already huge long before the 3DS and it was clear it would never replace dedicated gaming and just exist along side it, in order for a decline to happen you'd literally have to be thinking that the entire portable market would disappear which is not fully logical the 3DS not being the powerhouse that the DS was is no different to the PS3 not being like the PS2. Fact is the monopoly on portable alone made it impossible to decline.

When somethings in decline it doesn't mean its necessarily going to disappear it may rebound or level off  and the numbers show there was a definite decline and that decline lead Nintendo into the red something that hadn't happened before, no one was saying that Nintendo dedicated gaming was doomed or that mobile was going to kill it off just that all those aforementioned things were part of why there was more uncertainty at that time and that uncertainty was what me and Curl were talking about not doom. 

I'm just highlighting why the pessimism was overly dramatic and that it's not really a case of hindsight because much of it ignored factors which is very much summed up in Rol's Open Your Eye's thread back then, as shown the portable market alone which became a monopoly again had two platforms which amounted to over 80m units in sales these would need to go somewhere for their dedicated portable gaming fix and with the WiiU with 13m put the total consumer base at over 90m, this made the chances of a decline very small even with overlap in sales.

And I'm just highlighting that the pessimism was there and like you said that 80 million had to go somewhere but at that time we had seen it shrink from around 220million to that 80 million figure so whether or not the Switch would stabilise that trend was up in the air.

But why would you do that?

My point exactly.

There was good reason to assume that the decline wouldn’t continue, at least in any major way, by looking at the software sales of longtime Nintendo IP vs the sales of casual Wii/DS era titles.

With the exception of 2D Mario & Mario Kart, most longtime Nintendo IP saw little decline from DS/Wii to 3DS/Wii U.

Games like Pokémon, Animal Crossing, Smash Bros, 3D Mario, Zelda, Fire Emblem, Kirby, etc remained relatively stable and in some instances saw growth while games like Wii Sports/Fit/Party, Nintendogs & Brain Training completely cratered.

This shows that Nintendo IP in general were not seeing a decline and it was just the expanded blue ocean audience from DS/Wii that left and any future decline would likely be minimal.

80m would be an significant increase following Wii U which is the point when you add 3DS and Vita sales you have 90m so 3DS numbers alone was always the reasonable minimum especially as a hybrid device would benefit from games like mainline Pokemon which home consoles never got. The only way for such a decline would be for the portable market to literally crash as it was clear at that point Mobile was never replacing traditional and when you have a monopoly on a market the market itself has to crash as the monopoly is the stability.

So with Pokemon Scarlet Violet out of the way, what are the next big sellers for the Switch next year?