No, I don't expect Paper Mario and Luigi's Mansion to move a ton of hardware, because that's not how it works to begin with. The two of us have had discussions about Switch's sales momentum a few times in the last several years, and every time I've pointed out Switch's overall more than solid release schedule from first and third parties which will prevent sales from having a massive decline. In 2019 you doubted that Switch could pass 100m, later you doubted that Switch could pass the PS4, then 140m would have been too much of an ask in your mind. You know my argument already, so my response to the first half of your post can be condensed to me saying that the same logic will continue to hold true.

Switch is on pace to exceed Nintendo's projected 141.1m LTD mark by March 2024 and they'll likely forecast a figure of ~11m units for the fiscal year ending March 2025, because Switch's successor will hardly have an impact in the upcoming fiscal year. That's a decline of ~30% after FY23 declined by only ~15%. That will put Switch's LTD by March 2025 at 152m; the DS's lifetime figure stands at 154.02m. An additional mere 2m after an 11m year aren't a challenge, so I don't need to go into detail for each region. Try to run a shipment forecast for yourself and you should realize how hard it is to keep Switch below the DS in lifetime sales.

I missed this the other day since I don't spend much time here anymore (lack of sales data outside of Japan has killed a lot of sales discussion), I spent my time on Saturday dealing with mod reports, and I've been busy with personal stuff most of the rest of the time.

Anyway, however you define "solid release schedule," simply having a lot of games in total, even notable ones, isn't enough in and of itself to prevent significant declines. For example, in their last two years before being replaced, the 360 & PS3 had quite a few notable titles, including Mass Effect 3, regular franchises like CoD, Madden, and Assassin's Creed, exclusives like Halo 4 and The Last of Us, and of course the monster that was GTA5. They also had countless other less popular titles. Despite this, they had significant drops in those post-peak years. The 360 & PS3 dropped 27% & 24% respectively in the U.S. in 2012, and another 42.5% & 36.5% in 2013. Even after they were replaced they still got solid support (cross-gen being commonplace on PS & Xbox), yet that didn't prevent their decline from accelerating (-56.7% for the 360 and -65.7% for the PS3 in 2014 in the U.S.), nor did it prevent them from selling fewer units from Nov. 2013 on through the end of 2016 than they did in the 12 months before Nov. 2013. In those last 38 months of tracking their combined sales were ~5.4M vs. ~7.3M combined in the 12 months prior to replacement month.

I could point to a bunch of other systems as well, including Nintendo systems, and make the same observations about them having no shortage of games overall as well as more than a few notable titles yet still experiencing significant and sometimes very sharp declines. Nearly every system starts to have significant declines after it peaks, and those drops are usually more pronounced after the system is replaced (the only notable exception to the latter was the PS2). The accelerated post-replacement decline is especially pronounced with Nintendo systems, which is why this year is crucial for the Switch for its ability to pass potential future milestones. Despite its popularity, the Wii was dead in the water after the Wii U was released, and even the juggernaut that was the DS still saw shipments decline by two-thirds year-over-year in CY2011 and then another 88% the following year, and that's from a staggering 19.46M units shipped worldwide in CY2010, far better than any other Nintendo system in its last year. Even if the Switch ships another 10-12M this year, it could easily ship fewer than 5M units from 2025 onward. That's why I think it'll be close, and why passing the PS2 (which will require selling at least 5M more than the DS) is unlikely.

You and I clearly have different opinions on how fast the Switch will decline, and we just aren't going to see eye to eye on it. Hell, I probably am wrong regarding the DS, but I'm a stubborn old goat who'd still like to see a bit of vindication after the absolutely unnecessary abuse I got on this forum back in 2020-21. So let's leave it at that, shall we? Since we're just repeating ourselves every time a thread like this pops up, this will be the last time I discuss the matter until probably well after the Switch 2 releases and dust is starting to settle. Everybody already knows where I stand on the matter, and it's a waste of time to keep re-litigating it every couple of months.

Oh, and regarding my 2019 prediction for the Switch, I was far from the only one at the time who though it would "only" get to 100M. Prior to March 2020, not a single solitary soul had any clue how much the Switch was going to blow up that year. Back in January 2020, over half the respondents on a poll on this site felt the Switch wouldn't pass the PS4, and only 11.5% correctly guessed it would pass the PS4 in the latter half of 2022. I mean sure, the Switch was beating the PS4 by a 2-to-1 margin in Japan at that point, but in the U.S. it only just started consistently outperforming the PS4 in Q2 2019 and not by some massive amount (Switch LTD sales were 10% ahead of the PS4's, not counting the latter's launch quarter), and in Europe it was running a massive deficit against the PS4. Given that the board was split on whether the Switch could beat the PS4, the number of people who thought it could be the DS should have been even lower (a reasonable guess giving the massive LTD deficit against the DS the Switch had at the time).

2020 was an unprecedented year. Over on Era, the average prediction for 2020 sales in the U.S. had the Switch down slightly, with several sub-6M predictions and the most optimistic prediction being 6.9M. It ended up selling nearly 9M. Everybody got it very wrong with predictions for that year, and we all know why. Back in 2019, anybody could have been excused for thinking that the Switch had no shot at reach the DS or even that 2019 could have been the Switch's peak year. Predictions that the Switch would sell 150M+ were the outlier back then, not the consensus, even here on VGC. Keep that in mind before throwing those old predictions back in my face. They're not the "gotcha" you think they are.

I missed this the other day since I don't spend much time here anymore (lack of sales data outside of Japan has killed a lot of sales discussion), I spent my time on Saturday dealing with mod reports, and I've been busy with personal stuff most of the rest of the time.

Anyway, however you define "solid release schedule," simply having a lot of games in total, even notable ones, isn't enough in and of itself to prevent significant declines. For example, in their last two years before being replaced, the 360 & PS3 had quite a few notable titles, including Mass Effect 3, regular franchises like CoD, Madden, and Assassin's Creed, exclusives like Halo 4 and The Last of Us, and of course the monster that was GTA5. They also had countless other less popular titles. Despite this, they had significant drops in those post-peak years. The 360 & PS3 dropped 27% & 24% respectively in the U.S. in 2012, and another 42.5% & 36.5% in 2013. Even after they were replaced they still got solid support (cross-gen being commonplace on PS & Xbox), yet that didn't prevent their decline from accelerating (-56.7% for the 360 and -65.7% for the PS3 in 2014 in the U.S.), nor did it prevent them from selling fewer units from Nov. 2013 on through the end of 2016 than they did in the 12 months before Nov. 2013. In those last 38 months of tracking their combined sales were ~5.4M vs. ~7.3M combined in the 12 months prior to replacement month.

I could point to a bunch of other systems as well, including Nintendo systems, and make the same observations about them having no shortage of games overall as well as more than a few notable titles yet still experiencing significant and sometimes very sharp declines. Nearly every system starts to have significant declines after it peaks, and those drops are usually more pronounced after the system is replaced (the only notable exception to the latter was the PS2). The accelerated post-replacement decline is especially pronounced with Nintendo systems, which is why this year is crucial for the Switch for its ability to pass potential future milestones. Despite its popularity, the Wii was dead in the water after the Wii U was released, and even the juggernaut that was the DS still saw shipments decline by two-thirds year-over-year in CY2011 and then another 88% the following year, and that's from a staggering 19.46M units shipped worldwide in CY2010, far better than any other Nintendo system in its last year. Even if the Switch ships another 10-12M this year, it could easily ship fewer than 5M units from 2025 onward. That's why I think it'll be close, and why passing the PS2 (which will require selling at least 5M more than the DS) is unlikely.

You and I clearly have different opinions on how fast the Switch will decline, and we just aren't going to see eye to eye on it. Hell, I probably am wrong regarding the DS, but I'm a stubborn old goat who'd still like to see a bit of vindication after the absolutely unnecessary abuse I got on this forum back in 2020-21. So let's leave it at that, shall we? Since we're just repeating ourselves every time a thread like this pops up, this will be the last time I discuss the matter until probably well after the Switch 2 releases and dust is starting to settle. Everybody already knows where I stand on the matter, and it's a waste of time to keep re-litigating it every couple of months.

Oh, and regarding my 2019 prediction for the Switch, I was far from the only one at the time who though it would "only" get to 100M. Prior to March 2020, not a single solitary soul had any clue how much the Switch was going to blow up that year. Back in January 2020, over half the respondents on a poll on this site felt the Switch wouldn't pass the PS4, and only 11.5% correctly guessed it would pass the PS4 in the latter half of 2022. I mean sure, the Switch was beating the PS4 by a 2-to-1 margin in Japan at that point, but in the U.S. it only just started consistently outperforming the PS4 in Q2 2019 and not by some massive amount (Switch LTD sales were 10% ahead of the PS4's, not counting the latter's launch quarter), and in Europe it was running a massive deficit against the PS4. Given that the board was split on whether the Switch could beat the PS4, the number of people who thought it could be the DS should have been even lower (a reasonable guess giving the massive LTD deficit against the DS the Switch had at the time).

2020 was an unprecedented year. Over on Era, the average prediction for 2020 sales in the U.S. had the Switch down slightly, with several sub-6M predictions and the most optimistic prediction being 6.9M. It ended up selling nearly 9M. Everybody got it very wrong with predictions for that year, and we all know why. Back in 2019, anybody could have been excused for thinking that the Switch had no shot at reach the DS or even that 2019 could have been the Switch's peak year. Predictions that the Switch would sell 150M+ were the outlier back then, not the consensus, even here on VGC. Keep that in mind before throwing those old predictions back in my face. They're not the "gotcha" you think they are.

We are only one month away from getting Nintendo's forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2025, so the question whether or not Switch will pass the DS will probably be settled quickly.

For lifetime predictions in 2019 I was using the 100m mark, not 150m. That's a big difference, so the "gotcha" is fine.

You keep insisting that Switch is bound to decline significantly, hence why year after year you had to adjust your expectations upwards. The next target in line (DS lifetime sales) is the same story. It's indeed stubbornness that is at play here, but you are right that we don't need to continue here right now. We both can easily wait a month for a clearer picture.

It should do but even if it stalls badly, I think to get the record Nintendo should do what they don't do and that is slash the console in half once the switch successor comes out. It will fly off the shelves to people who can't afford to pay the full price of a console.