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Forums - Sales Discussion - Nintendo's proft during the Switch era surpasses the combined profit from 1981 to 2016

Pyro as Bill on 11 May 2024
Soundwave said:
Pyro as Bill said:

So Ring Fit is a fad and Nintendo struck gold with the pandemic? That would also imply Switch Sports outsells Pokemon had it released pre-Covid.

I'm saying many fitness based products saw a huge surge in sales over the pandemic as people were not only locked out of gyms in some countries you weren't even allowed to go outside for a walk, lol. 

You couldn't even buy bog standard bar bells on Amazon and other fitness sites as they were sold out, I don't think it's any kind of stretch to say that had a huge impact on the sales of a lot of fitness based products. 

Switch Sports is barely even one of the top 20 selling Switch games, imagine if Wii Sports was the 19th top selling Wii game. 

Peloton's share price had dropped 90% from it's pandemic peak by the time Switch Sports released and was half of what it was pre-pandemic. By your own logic it would have probably outsold Wii Sports if it released pre-covid.



Nov 2016 - NES outsells PS1 (JP)

Don't Play Stationary 4 ever. Switch!

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Qwark on 11 May 2024

It's well deserved though we also need to remember Switch has had a lot of ground work for it's software in the Wii U era. They basically remastered every game they made in the Wii U era and it sold 10's of millions, this increasing profits. Mario Kart 8 is obviously is the best example of this. Almost no de costs and outselling most new games on the market at barely any costs (which where made in the past) really increase profits. It will.makeva transition hard now that Nintendo is used to making 500 million per year on profit. New activities like the movie and the theme parks licensing surely helped too.



Please excuse my (probally) poor grammar

Wman1996 on 11 May 2024
curl-6 said:

Switch is honestly closer to Wii/DS in terms of its DNA than it is to Wii U, N64, or Gamecube.

N64 and Gamecube are red ocean consoles, designed to directly fight competing consoles on equal footing for control of the existing pool of players. As for Wii U, that system was a fundamental misunderstanding of why Wii and DS succeeded, driven by the assumption that a novel gimmick was all that was needed, rather than seeing that Wii and DS won their generation by removing barriers to entry for new gamers.

The design philosophy behind the Switch is honestly probably closest to the NES and Gameboy; a rethink of what it means to be a console/handheld that provides a lean, no-frills launchpad for accessible gameplay experiences.

Also, the logic that Ring Fit and Switch Sports succeeded due to the pandemic doesn't water, because their sales continued to hold strong long after the lockdowns ended.

True, but they were red ocean consoles that screwed up the game delivery format. The failings of N64 and GameCube largely due to cartridges and miniDVD caused Nintendo to shift to a blue ocean strategy with Wii. 

Limitations on N64 and GameCube hurt Nintendo's revenue and potentially profits, any limitations on Switch seem to be helping. So many people buy digital nowadays, so the price of Switch cartridges to make and capping out at 32 GB isn't much of an issue. Nintendo will probably increase the max cartridge size of Switch 2 games to 64 GB, despite the fact that some third-party Switch 2 games will hit 100 GB or above. Digital distribution and updates are things that obviously were not really a thing during N64 and GameCube. 



Lifetime Sales Predictions 

Switch: 161 million (was 73 million, then 96 million, then 113 million, then 125 million, then 144 million, then 151 million, then 156 million)

PS5: 115 million (was 105 million) Xbox Series S/X: 48 million (was 60 million, then 67 million, then 57 million)

PS4: 120 mil (was 100 then 130 million, then 122 million) Xbox One: 51 mil (was 50 then 55 mil)

3DS: 75.5 mil (was 73, then 77 million)

"Let go your earthly tether, enter the void, empty and become wind." - Guru Laghima

newwil7l on 11 May 2024

Not really a fan of this debate. I think switch is successful because it has the DNA of both the more casual consoles like Wii and DS but also classics like N64, GameCube etc. That's what has made it so successful.