"It's been 3,000 years..."

Good evening one and all,

I'M BACK! 

I know I've always been here and never actually left the site, but if you recall, a few years back, I was doing these hardware sales comparison threads where I compared sales for all three, then eventually five, major consoles Year over Year and even to their predecessors on a week-to-week basis. Back when the sales numbers were updated weekly.

But I eventually stopped doing them because what had started out as a project on the side and something fun, I enjoyed and loved doing because I loved seeing the stats and following the trends and charts like we all do, eventually became so overwhelming to the point where it started feeling like a job. It felt like work, and the work just became too much. And I didn't want to do it anymore.

Since then @XtremeBG has picked up the wagon and led the charge in posting the comparison threads and has done a marvelous job with them! Definitely check those out if you haven't already, and if you have, continue to do so. Excellent work on those threads. Keep it up, BG!

So, with another holiday season come and gone, especially for the Nintendo Switch, which has now concluded its 8th, yes, EIGHTH holiday season, and the recently announced Nintendo Switch 2 on the horizon, everyone here and on many sites has speculated on how much gas the Switch 1 (Gotta get used to calling it that) has left in the tank. Can it get to 160 million? And can it actually, really catch and surpass the PlayStation 2?

So if you follow @RolStoppable 's thread "The Road to 160m+ for Nintendo Switch" I posted a comment that showed the sales of various consoles from the years their successors released until discontinuation - To serve as a reference for how much Switch can realistically sell from 2025 onwards with Switch 2 slated to release this year. And with Nintendo's next financial report due in less than two weeks on Tues, Feb 4th - where they'll release the latest Switch shipment figures as of Dec 31, 2024 - It has led my mind racing as to what exactly Switch's chances, how much it needs to sell, and how much CAN it sell based on its predecessors' history, or if it'll even follow their history.

And before I knew it, that old spark started to come back! I spent one afternoon gathering specifically the regional data for the DS in 2011, 3DS in 2017, and Wii in 2012 to see how they sold when their respective successors released in that year - To give me an idea of what Switch could do this year.  And in the following three comments after this OP, you will see the results.

Now, this will be a one-time thing for a very special occasion to see if Switch can maintain the pace it needs to catch the PS2. I don't plan on doing any comparison threads with the PS5 or Series S/X. This may even carry into next year where I do ANOTHER thread comparing Switch 1 to other systems in the 2ND years of their successors' life cycles. But I'm getting WAY ahead of myself here. For now, let's just stay focused on this one.

With that said, folks. WELCOME to my first comparison thread in a long time! Nintendo Switch 1 '25 vs. Nintendo DS '11, Nintendo 3DS '17, and Nintendo Wii '12!

And the Nintendo Switch 1's march towards potential history!

Nintendo Switch 1 2025 vs Nintendo DS 2011

Global

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United States

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Europe

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Japan

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Rest of the World

Nintendo Switch 1 2025 vs. Nintendo 3DS 2017

Global

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United States

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Europe

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Japan

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Rest of the World

Nintendo Switch 2025 vs. Nintendo Wii 2012

Global

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United States

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Europe

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Japan

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Rest of the World

It's good to see your enthusiasm back for another sales rodeo between Nintendo current and past platforms !

Looking at the yearly numbers for the DS '11 Yar on the market, I don't know if the Switch technically has it to match the exact number but doing it would bring it right at the doors of 160M shipped so yes, it'd be good.

Switch will for sure outsell Wii's 2012.
Switch's 2025 sales are dependent on several factors
-If Switch gets a price cut
-When Switch 2 launches. A Q3 or Q4 Switch 2 release would probably help Switch a little. Q4 seems unlikely considering we're getting a Direct at the start of Q2.
-How Switch 2 does early on. If Switch 2 launches well before the holiday season and is a disappointment for Nintendo in sales, Switch could sell better than we expect.

So, the updates are going to be a bit different this time around.

Since the data is updated monthly instead of weekly, the breakdowns won't be quite as frequent.

What instead will happen is we will go based on the regionals that come in.
For example: We still get weekly Japanese data thanks to Famitsu, so I'll be using them as the reference for the Japan charts.

Then once Circana and Europe data comes in at the end of the month for the US and EU markets, I'll put those in.
Then the Global data usually follows, which is when I'll put the global data in.
Then once the Global, US, EU, and JP data are in, I can use those to calculate and find the ROTW of the world data as well as make the necessary adjustments.

So it'll more than likely be Japan first, then the US and EU, then Global, and finally Rest of the World.

The only scenario where Switch 2 is a sales disappointment is if it the launch price is too high like $500. I even think $450 would be pushing it. $400 is has been the widely speculated price point, and I think that's just right. If it's $350, that would be fantastic! But unlikely given Switch OLED is currently $350 and that would spell certain death for that model and also severely impact the base $300 model unless Nintendo cuts the price for all Switch 1 models.

Nice to see you're doing this again for the last stretch of the Switch! In case you don't know the Wii part isn't fully filled out like it is for the DS and 3DS. For how the Switch will do somewhat above 3DS level is my guess.

The cumulative/total sales for Wii 2012 seem to be missing here, but VGC says it sold 5.1m; I would expect the Switch to beat that since it looks like it will have the first half of the year or so to itself before it's replaced.

3DS is trickier, as it was much cheaper than Switch at the time and the Switch wasn't BC with its games, so it remained a viable impulse purchase through 2017. If Switch 2 is like $450 or more or the current system gets a price reduction then I can see Switch 2025 taking this.

DS is probably out of reach as it was also dirt cheap at the time.