I’m revising my shipment forecast: [NSW2 - 14.7mil C’25] 4.3mil (June), 3.2mil (Q2F26), 7.2mil (Q3F26), 3.5mil (Q4F26); [PS5 - 15.4mil C’25 (-23.1% YoY)] 3.0mil [Q1C25], 2.4mil [Q2C25], 3.1mil [Q3C25], 6.9mil [Q4C25].

If Nintendo is saying 15mil for the entire fiscal year, then that means they don’t have stock to meet launch demand. So, 4.3mil seems to be an appropriate ceiling for the first month. The small library & high price tag (comp to NSW) will also make sales not nearly as strong as NSW’s 2019-2022 numbers, so quarterly/holiday figures will likely match that of 2018/2023. With all the price uncertainty with NSW2 and (esp) PS5, this could def be a very close comparison.

Bonus: [NSW - 4.6mil F’26] 0.9mil (Q1F26), 1.0mil (Q2F26), 2.3mil (Q3F26), 0.4mil (Q4F26).

With GTA6 releasing early in the next fiscal year (assuming no delays), chances are PS5 will perform poorly this year (possible 16 million or lower) and go up significantly next year. A whole year of GTA6 and a potential pricedrop (ignoring that every time I expect a drop, we get a hike instead lol) should make 2026 a really big year for Playstation.

I don't know what Nintendo is thinking and whether their forecast is based on a pessimistic perception of demand or related to production limits. I'm sure they'll sell as many consoles as they can produce if the price doesn't change much.

Furukawa stated the 15 million forecast was not due to production levels, but their conservative forecast based on the Switch 2 being more expensive. That means that Nintendo will produce more than 15 million consoles this FY and demand will be the decider if Nintendo beats the 15 million forecast or not.

Good original question. But your follow-up comment is misguided and based on assumptions that are both irrelevant and false.

First: neither the DS nor the Switch were impulse buy price - those refer to advertised discount prices of substantial levels to 30 USD or lower or holiday discount sales—often associated with clearance. And “kid friendly price” isn’t a thing. But if you wanted to create a “kid friendly price” category, it would have to fall into the price range of what parents will spend on an electronic product for their kid. These would include TVs, personal computers, and many other devices that kids use. The top selling would be smart devices (phones and tablets). Over the past decade, smart devices sell between 1.3 and 1.55 billion per year, outselling gaming consoles by a multiple of 25-40 over the unit sales of dedicated gaming consoles in that time frame. The current two top selling in these categories are (at current time) the iPhone 16 Pro Max, which starts at a retail price of 1200 USD for the base model; and the Samsung Galaxy S25, which starts at a price of 1300 USD for the base model. This would price all major gaming consoles, including Switch 2, within the “kid friendly” range of this new category.

Second: the coronavirus pandemic was a net negative for items that weren’t sanitization or healthcare products. Nintendo wasn’t an exception. The pandemic hurt Nintendo’s ability to produce and ship the Switch. But Nintendo kept demand high with robust advertisement and the release of a killer app in 2020—the first killer app since April 2017—all this regardless of the pandemic. So, the summer and autumn quarters 2020 were up over 2019 by 18.0%, beating the 17 million mark in 6 months (shorter than 7 months). Quite a bump, but not as high as the bump the previous year (pre-pandemic), as 2019 summer and autumn quarters were up even higher over 2018, by 24.9%—and without a killer app. Because the trajectory of sales growth declined during the pandemic, despite the higher advantage because of a killer app, it means that the argument that the pandemic hurt Nintendo is stronger than the argument that it helped them.

Consoles have shipped 17 million in 7 months or near 17 million before. Apart from the periods I mentioned, Switch came close or exceeded the level before the pandemic, where it sold 15.61 million in 6 months. There was also the Wii in FY2009 which sold15.87m in 6 months, and averaged just shy of 5 million sales in adjacent quarters (an average of 1.65m per month), which means it almost certainly exceeded 17 million in 7 months.

But back to the original questions: can dedicated gaming consoles sell over 17 million in 7 months? The answer is yes.

Yeah, quite unlikely. The best we can hope for in that regard is bundles as the standard with every SKU including at least one digital game. 

You may be right, but it's possible if Trump calms down, which I suspect he will lol. The PS5 got a limited AstroBot bundle since March 13 at $449.99/€499.99 (standard PS5), $399.99/€449.99 (digital PS5). This is a 50$/€ (or more in EU?) discount PLUS a free game.

The reliable source that leaked the bundle (Billbil-kun) is now saying they're preparing a Black Ops 6 bundle at the same prices, challenging the general expectation that Sony would follow Microsoft's steps and increase the prices of both models.

"The good news is the pricing, which some will surely compare to the new Xbox console prices, which have been increasing since May 1st. Unlike previous Call of Duty bundles, launch promotions are planned."

Sony just announced their forecast on PS5 hardware sales this FY: 15 million, the same as Nintendo's forecast for Switch 2 sales.

So it will go down to the wire which console will come out on top this FY.

What a rollercoaster this thread was lol

Yeah... not so sure about this now.  Sony's 15m fiscal forecast, like Nintendo's, can be viewed as conservative because of the market conditions but PS5's 2.8m shipment for Jan-March is lower than I thought.  Even if we apply a modest 15% drop for the PS5 for the remainder of the calendar year, it would finish at just over 16m.  We will have to see just how much stock Nintendo can muster up and how high demand stays for Switch 2 between launch and the end of the year, but again, taking GTA out of the equation makes things much closer between the two systems in this competition.

In any case, I do hope that tariffs don't interfere any more than they already have at this point for anyone, skewing the results in what would otherwise be a very interesting comparison.

It turned out to be exactly the same so less than expected though not by a lot so the overall picture isn't changed much. It should be at about 5m shipped by the end of June so should have a lead heading into the 2nd half of the year unless there's 5m Switch 2's shipped for launch so with the launch just three weeks away and all the information known the PS5 is a clear favourite. If it was June onward the Switch 2 would also be the clear favourite though not by quite as much.