I looked up pedantic on Google and for some reason it sent me to this thread. Weird.

Try Bing?

Dang it. Tried Bing and it did the same exact thing to me. Must be a weird loop I’m stuck in. Thankfully I still have my old Webster’s unabridged. 

Indeed. No individual game has ever pushed that much hardware. Not even close. The biggest boosts were like an order of magnitude less, lasting maybe 2-3 months at best before sales return to baseline levels and pushing several hundred thousand surplus hardware units in that time.

I'm just glad the board seems to have mellowed out on this issue. It got nasty there for a while back in 2020-21.

Hard to say for sure, but I'll venture a guess, one that will assume that Switch 2 still releases in 2024 (let's say March).

By the end of 2019, the Switch was a bit behind where the PS4 was in the U.S. at the end of 2016 (its third year), though that's including the PS4's launch holiday. If you exclude that, the Switch was doing slightly better. The Switch did better in 2019 than the PS4 did in 2016. Most predictions at the start of 2020 seemed the think the Switch would be roughly flat over 2019 in the U.S., maybe a bit down, maybe a bit up (the average in Welfare's prediction thread for that year was 6383k), so the Switch would have still outpaced the PS4 in 2020 regardless. That means it was likely to start passing the PS4 in LTD terms even with the latter's launch holiday included. From 2020 onward, the Switch would likely have still done better than the PS4 did in each year past 2016. The Switch still most likely would have beaten the PS4 in the U.S., by a comfortable margin. It probably would have sold somewhere around 40M in the U.S., compared to a likely end total of around 36-37M for the PS4 (which had a better than expected 2020 up until stock was depleted in October of that year, but no legs at all due to continued lack of stock after 2020).

In Japan it was doing well out of the gate, selling much better than the PS4, but it was trailing the 3DS, which was previously the #3 system ever in Japan. However, the 3DS was fairly front-loaded, and even as early as the 2019 holiday season the Switch was starting to narrow its deficit against the 3DS. The 3DS had a big drop-off in its fourth year (a nearly 37.7% decline from the previous year), while early indications were the Switch was going to hold steady in 2020 or at worst maybe be down a bit. So, even without the pandemic the Switch stood a good chance of beating the 3DS to take the all-time #3 spot. It likely would have sold no less than 25M. I'm thinking somewhere around 27-28M. 30M was probably a long shot, but not impossible.

In Europe, the Switch was trailing the PS4 by a massive margin, and it still has an insurmountable deficit in the region. By VGC's count, by the end of 2016 the PS4 had sold 22.1M units while by the end of 2019 the Switch had sold only about 12.8M, and by all accounts that deficit was going to keep growing. The Switch was consistently doing slightly better in Europe than in Japan, something that has held true to the present in our timeline, so it's likely in the no-COVID timeline this would have remained the case as well. The Switch may have sold around 30M units in Europe, give or take.

So, between the U.S., Japan, and Europe, we're looking at 97-98M. Allot roughly 15% market share for the rest of the world, and that gives us a global estimate of somewhere around 115M, just short of the PS4. Worst case? Maybe around 100M. Best case? Maybe around 130M.

Folks Actually arguing Animal Crossing wasn’t a big deal. Just look at the history of the series. It always, always sells gangbusters. Add the Switch effect, the revolutionary changes to the gameplay, and yes, the pandemic, and this is no surprise. For those who think this was a fluke, just watch the next Animal Crossing be in the top 5 selling software titles on Switch 2. It’s all but guaranteed. There are a lot of naysayers to the gameplay loop of a game like Animal Crossing, but cozy gaming is a big deal. Like Guitar Hero, Wii Sports, GTA big. It has crossover appeal that few titles can achieve.

Again, not saying the pandemic didn’t help bolster those sales, but regardless of the pandemic, New Horizons was always going to be a 20+ million seller.

Some mention the GBA and SNES having lower sales, suggesting that Switch 2 might follow that pattern. However, it's crucial to note that both those consoles had notably shorter lifespans than their predecessors. As for Switch 2, there's currently no indication that it will follow a similar trajectory… at least not yet.

The SNES, in hindsight, could potentially have continued selling, but it was the first Nintendo console with a planned obsolescence. The NES, on the other hand, was allowed to survive for 2-3 years into the SNES era, lasting up to a decade in certain markets effectively 12 years in total (de facto, it was 1983 to 1995, but officially it wasn’t discontinued until 2003). In comparison, the SNES had a lifespan of about 5 years almost everywhere outside of Japan (where I believe it was around 7 years). If you take any 5 years of the NES, the SNES outperforms it.

The reality is that there isn't enough information to predict Switch 2's performance with any reasonable accuracy. Unlike Sony, where the next console often follows a similar pattern to the previous one, or Xbox, where they copy Sony’s hardware and strategies but not necessarily their success (except for Xbox 360). Nintendo takes a unique approach with each generation. Generations vary in length, hardware differs in form, and sales can vary drastically. Some generations (like Cube and U) lack a standout killer app, while others (like GB, DS, Wii, and Switch) boast multiple, which has proven a crucial role in driving console sales.

In short, we need more information (killer apps, generation length, form factors, supply, pricing, etc…) to make an informed prediction. If we're going by gut feelings… I feel 379 million! That's probably way off. :D

Agreed. I’d add that Animal Crossing was probably the most culturally significant game of the Switch generation, thanks to the pandemic. Millions (perhaps tens of millions) were using it as a social gathering application. The last Nintendo game with that kind of cultural impact was Pokémon Go.

So I’m not arguing that Covid didn’t have an impact, I absolutely think it did, but I think you are severely overestimating the impact. It’s looking like Switch will sell ~150 million and by your estimates 20-50 million of that is from Covid, or ~35 million as your most likely prediction.

I guess my problem with this is, I understand that 2020/2021 sales would be elevated from the pandemic but why would 2022/2023 sales remain elevated? Shouldn’t there have been a very substantial drop after the pandemic instead of the steady decline we have seen?

2022/2023 did not have lockdowns, businesses and schools were not closed, stimulus checks were not going out, the expanded child tax credit had ended, enhanced unemployment benefits had ended, mortgage forbearance programs had ended, etc. for the most part, life was back to normal.

yearly sales (vgchartz numbers)

2019-~19 million

2020-~28 million

2021-~24 million

2022-~19 million

2023-15+ million (estimate)

If 2020/2021 were elevated from the pandemic than 2022 should have had a substantial drop and been a good deal below 2019 sales (the year you say should have been the peak or close to peak) instead of on par with it.

The biggest problem you are making is assuming that the consensus among this sites 2020 predictions were correct, we were wrong (myself included). I think we can look back and see that Switch was poised to have a solid boost in 2020 regardless of Covid and not just because of Animal Crossing.

Look at the lineup from September 2019-March 2020, it had Switch Lite, first new Pokemon generation, Animal Crossing, Ring Fit, Luigi’s Mansion, 2D Zelda, Dragon Quest. January/February were already up over 22% YoY before Covid/Animal Crossing boost. This reminds me of the late 2005-mid 2006 period where DS had Nintendogs, Brain Age, New Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing & DS Lite in like a 9 month period which caused DS to go from a strong selling to massive selling device.

Basically in order for 2022 to be on par with 2019 than 2020/2021 would have to had sizable boosts even without the Covid boost, something like

2019-19 million

2020-24 million

2021-21 million

2022-19 million

I would say your best case scenario of 130 million should be the worat case scenario without covid.

It’s probably impossible unless they have a very well thought out and planned 10 year life cycle for the successor or something. And even then, you can’t force success like Switch so it could still fall well short even if Nintendo wants to ride it out for a solid decade.

Probably the most viable way for it to happen would be either an absolute universal software phenomenon like Wii Sports or GameFreak REALLY gets their shit together and takes time to make a next gen Pokemon on the level of BOTW reception. I think that would be the biggest non GTA game of all time and blow the roof off hardware sales. I also don’t think GF is remotely capable of that as a dev, so it’s likely a moot point.