I think Nintendo is in an awkward position and wouldn't choose to risk hurting Switch 2's image or momentum by doing something like this. They lucked out with COVID, but apparently this just meant that the pandemic sucked out all their luck resources lol.

Everyone was giving Sony shit for going crossgen earlier in the generation (2020/2021's Demon's Souls, Returnal, and Rift Apart were PS5 exclusives, but 2022's Forbidden West, GT7, and Ragnarok were crossgen). In hindsight, Sony made the right move to deal with the shortages which forced a slow transition. But they were unable to produce decent quantities of PS4 alongside a stock limited PS5.

I have no idea how Nintendo should deal with this if Switch 2's sales slow down and they find themselves forced to increase the price which worsens an already challenging situaion.

Bold to predict PS5 will outship NS2 in 2026, when historically YoY shipments only go up for new systems (not to mention the addition of 6 extra months this time) and down for systems in their latter-half lifecycle.

I see what you are getting at but I don't think its really that bold. And there are all sort of external things that may actually prevent this from happening like actual supply shortages and what not.  That being said, we can all agree that people buy video game consoles to play video games.  And GTA 6's launch will be the biggest.  So we would expect that the demand for this title would drive demand for the console.  And what happens if Sony releases a GTA 6 bundle during the next holiday season?  Its gonna be utterly massive.  No reasonable person would say otherwise... if you think it won't be massive please explain why so I know where you are coming from.

As somebody who recently jumped from PS to PC, while I’m not representative of every PC gamer, I know that it’d take a lot more than one timed exclusive to compel me to fork over $450/500USD for a PS5. Especially when save data cannot be transferred over to PC. At best, I’d rent a system.

Plus, there will already be around 100mil PS5 systems out in the wild by the point of GTAVI’s release— chances are if you want to play GTAVI this fall, you’ve already got your PS5 purchased. The bump will be non-negligible, no doubt, but I don’t see it being any more than a few million additional units.

With all due respect, you're wrong.

I want you to think for a minute... "what is GTA VI" and what does "GTA VI Playstation 5 (almost) exclusive" mean....

This game is the biggest event in the gaming world in recent years, a true game-changer... You're a Nintendo guy, so think about this: Zelda, Pokémon, Mario... all at their  peak and absolute best interation... all small fry compared to GTA, name any franchise, whatever you want, nothing comes close to GTA.

I'm saying now, PlayStation will sell over 130 million (life-time) consoles and a large part of that will come from the fact that GTA 6 is practically exclusive to Playstation 5. A very large number of people are going to buys Playstation just to play GTA VI.

Damn, i think GTA VI can nail +50M in sales in year 1,  almost all coming from Playstation. This game will do things that most would call "impossible"!

I feel like even a bump of a few million may be enough to put it ahead.  I like that you are using historical data to make your case but I also believe that we may not have reliable data to help us determine the size of a bump for a launch of this historic proportion should actually look like.  I think we will be able to look to the forecasts around May/June to see what we are realistically working with.  It will be fun to see what winds up happening for sure.

I don’t think GTAVI will have as big an effect as some people think, but it will still be significant. I think something the detractors misunderstand is that it is not comparable to any other video game launch.

Take, for example, Tears of the Kingdom. It was a massive launch, huge numbers for week one. However, Tears of the Kingdom was just a video game that appealed to the normal core Video Game audience. A lot of those people bought it, but they were all just normal video game customers that buy lots of games. GTAVI will transcend the normal video game world in a way that no other video game product ever has. Everyone in the world will hear about the launch, it will not only be everywhere but it will be on all the mainstream news websites and national news channels. People who’d never even played a video game might be tempted to play it. People who’ve not played games for a decade might be drawn back in. Etc. etc.

It will be a cultural phenomenon.

Shipment figures for 2025 now in:

Switch 2 - 17.37m
PS5 - 17.2m

Looks like Switch 2 wins, but damn, talk about close. Great turnout for both systems.  This thread was a heck of a ride.

Heck of a ride indeed going from an major longshot at the start to seemingly having it in the bag after Q2 to only barely managing it in the end. I thought it was incredibly unlikely initially since it would need an absolutely record shattering first few months to do it but that is exactly what happened so this is an extremely impressive accomplishment even if some of it is due to some people buying one sooner than usual due to knowing there won't be any price cuts and expecting a price increase down the line. That plus the good but not great holiday doesn't take away from the fact that the Switch 2's first 7 months were overall amazing. Building up a significant install base this quickly is gonna do wonders for third party support ramping up fast over the next 1-2 years.

So basically a tie. Anyone brave enough to do a 2026 thread? I would gladly do some more GTA 6 sermons where I recount the miracles it is said to have performed. I can sprinkle them in throughout the year.