The PS2 isn’t ahead of DS by that much in the end, only about 4M, so if Switch passes DS, I think it’ll pass PS2 as well. All or nothing. I have switched (heh) on this recently, the Switch has remained very steady and with the rumours of Switch 2 slipping into 2025, I now too finally think Switch will become the best-selling system ever.

It doesn't look too far.

It's still running a huge and insurmountable deficit against the DS in the U.S., and a far bigger one in Europe. It is on the verge of exceeding the DS in Japan (only 600k away), and should beat it by at least a million, but that's not enough by itself to make up for deficits in the other two major markets. It's going to depend on the rest of the world making up for those deficits in NA & Europe. It's also going to depend on if Nintendo cares if the Switch drops off a cliff after the Switch 2 releases. Given their past approaches to systems with an actual successor, I have my doubts that they will be anywhere near proactive enough to keep the Switch from having massive declines.

Passing the DS worldwide is still within the realm of possibility, but it's probably going to be very close regardless. The PS2 sold at least 5 million units more than the DS, so that's going to be an even tougher goal for the Switch to reach. Reaching 150M before it's discontinued is guaranteed, and it could possibly even hit that mark by time the Switch 2 releases. But this late in the system's life with a successor due out in a year and sales in rapid decline, squeezing another 14M out will be difficult but not impossible, but another 20M+ is going to be highly unlikely. So, passing the DS is a "maybe" and passing the PS2 is a "probably not." If the Switch 2 released this year, I would have said absolutely no to it passing either.

I agree that the EU is "full" on Nintendo Switch. But given how from 2022-2023 we saw a -10.28% decline, I expect around a -25% decline giving EU another 3.33M units sold by Dec 2024. Bringing their total to ~38.54M.

NA still has some gas in it. (Im going to be focusing on USA due to the USA having the greater share of units sold in NA). From 2022-2023 we saw a -16.81% decline, so we should expect a -25% decline this year, giving the USA another 3.64M units sold by Dec 2024. Bringing the USA total to ~47.93M (up from their 44.75M right now, NA total is 49.23M). We can add an extra 1M (maybe) for Canada and México. 53.41M (since NA total right now is at 49.23M).

Japan still has lots of gas to go and is cooking. Japan from 2022-2023 had a -15.91% decline. So we can expect around a -25% decline giving Japan another 2.96M units sold by Dec 2024. Bringing their total to 35.46M.

If we go global, from 2022-2023 we saw a -14% decline. We will expect a -25% decline for consistency giving the Switch another 12.29M units by Dec 2024. Bringing the total to 148.55M. But this will only give Other 1.36M sold from Jan 2024-Dec 2024, it has already sold 295k from Jan-Feb. I suspect Other to start increasing in sales this year and especially in 2025. I suspect Other to sell 1.81M total from Jan to Dec. (I don't recall the data for Other, so this estimate isn't grounded in anything). Having a total of 12.74M sold from Jan to Dec 2024.

I think NA, Japan and Other are gonna continue to carry the Switch, especially from what we see in Jan and Feb % for NA, EU and JP, -9.3% & -21.6%, -27.7% & -21.7%, -9.9% & -7.6% respectively.
Based on this technically Japan is on track to have a -15% decline at the most by Dec 2024, but we can do the math for that later down the year.

At this point DS is pretty much a sure thing since it's only gonna be a few million away by the time the Switch 2 comes out. The PS2 is still up in the air though it's likely and if it doesn't will still get really close.

2023 141M
2024 152M 10m+
2025 157M 5m+
2026 159M 2m+
2027 160M 1m+

This is just a prediction based on a few hopeful outcomes and decisions, but the switch only really needs a few things to go it's way. assuming there isn't a sales collapse and that nitendo keeps selling the switch for ten years like they said they would all it takes is a few more games and some hope to really push things over the edge.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, and be on point with the numbers .. The switch was at 136M sold as of dec 31st.

It will probably do around 10M for 2024. This is making it 146M at end of 2024.

2025 will be around 5M. So ~151M. It really depends here if and when exactly they are launching switch 2 and also if they will pricecut the switch 1. Cuz with pricecut I can see the Switch reaching few millions more than what it can without pricecut (around 155M I think). So it's really 50/50 territorry here. For 160M they need to put the lite model at 199$ and the oled at 299$ with the normal one going for 249$. Also they need Switch 2 releasing spring 2025 at the earliest. of course summer or even fall of 2025, will greatly help. And even than 160M is a tough call.

I think a final total of 165 million for hardware and 1550 million for software.

Shipments (millions of units)

The numbers of the guy you quoted are shipment numbers by the end of the given fiscal year, so "2023" means "shipments by the end of March 2024."

As for your approach, eventually every shipped unit will be sold, so there's nothing speaking against talking about shipped numbers to begin with.

So when you expect around 10m of sell-through in calendar year 2024, shipments will reach 149m by December 2024. Another ~5m in 2025 make it 154m, so in your outlook - that typically tends to be on the pessimistic side for Switch - beating the DS is already a given when we include the post-2025 sales (which we should).

Switch is already ahead of the DS in Japan. There's really no point in looking at sell-through numbers when we have access to the more accurate shipped numbers. Eventually every shipped unit will be a sold through unit.

Here are the figures for Nintendo's final breakdown of DS shipments by region, totaling to 153.99m. The DS shipped a miniscule amount after this final breakdown, bringing its final lifetime figure to 154.02m. Switch LTD shipments are as of December 31st 2023, totaling 139.36m.

Japan: DS 32.99m vs. Switch 33.34m
Americas: DS 59.93m vs. Switch 53.85m
Other: DS 61.07m vs. Switch 52.18m

The fact that both Paper Mario and Luigi's Mansion 2 get released in the first half of 2024 (earlier than pretty much everyone expected) points in the direction of Nintendo having plenty of other first party games left to be released on Switch. Plus one big title (Pokémon Legends) is already confirmed for 2025. We have these facts, but you'd rather form your expectations based on vague assumptions. I guess you are entitled to do that, but it's definitely not the best analytical approach.

Switch doesn't need to beat the DS in the USA when it can beat the DS in the whole of America (only ~6m to go, not that big of a challenge). Nintendo's better distribution by country of today can have certainly impacted the amount of units that were sold in the USA and then exported to another American country afterwards. In a similar way, better worldwide availability of Switch than what the DS had will allow Switch to make up for lower lifetime sales in Europe.

Given the currently available facts, I'd put the chance of Switch passing the DS at a full 100% and passing the PS2 at 75%. Most of the doubt regarding the PS2 comes from the lack of a final lifetime figure on Sony's behalf, so read these 75% as the probability that it will be widely acknowledged that Switch beat the PS2.