Those analysts are idiots. They took the 2.2m preorder figure from Japan's My Nintendo Store, looked at the percentage of Japanese Switch 1 shipments of global shipments, then used that as a formula to arrive at their result. That math is bonkers. How did those guys even get a job.

On May 8th Nintendo will announce the size of their launch shipment of Switch 2 consoles as well as their targeted total for the whole fiscal year ending March 2026. That should put an end to the absurdly high figures that are being thrown around here lately.

Has any console in history actually achieved 18 million in 7 months? Why are people choosing the Switch for the win here?

If that's the previous record it's safe to say it's not selling that much in Japan at launch. Even just 900k would destroy the record.

Based on customs data, US shipments were at 383k for January, and production has only continued to ramp since then, implying >2m in stock in the US by launch.
https://famiboards.com/threads/future-nintendo-hardware-technology-speculation-discussion-st-new-staff-post-please-read.55/page-4137#post-1656320
Install base has also estimated based on average GameStop stock that Gamestop has ~200k units for the initial round of pre-orders alone, and that's for one retailer

Yasuda Hideki, a senior analyst at Toyo Securities who is familiar with the game industry, points out, "I think they had prepared a total of 800,000 to 1 million units for the domestic market at official stores and mass retailers."
https://www.sankei.com/article/20250429-RBY2USEZPVNGNDMWGNK7ZKZA6A/

That would imply ~3-3.5m for the US and Japan alone in the first month. By contrast, the Switch sold about 1.5m combined in US and Japan during the same timeframe.

Those PS2 figures do not count first-party sales. It sold 720k in its first weekend and >980k through its first 3 weeks. 

That post in the first link is only viewable by registered users so I can't say anything about that and that analyst you cite has recently apologized for sharing misinformation about FF16's sales so based on that I don't put too much stock into what he says unless his overall track record is really good.

This doesn't change the overall point but as Rol said we'll get Nintendo's forecast in just a few days so at this point there's little purpose to debating this so lets just agree to disagree till then.

i’ll have you all know that this is my first time predicting launch month sales for a system…so i might be completely off lol. However, I do believe Switch 2 is gonna move an insane number of units, based solely on (i) Nintendo’s claims of planning massive supply (and subsequently selling through all inventory rather instantly…not to mention those JP preorder request figures), (ii) Nintendo Switch selling through (likely) 11mil in its 8th fiscal year (meaning there is a massive market of Nintendo consumers atm), and (iii) NSW2 will likely become a very economical option compared to PS5/XBSXS. Alongside a drought in exclusive offerings to competing systems? It seems like a perfect storm…very much more perfect than 2020, which still saw Nintendo fighting off a new generation during the holidays & a powerful lineup of PS4 releases.

Good question.

Not the first 7 months, but DS and Switch both managed to sell 18 million+ in 6 month periods. The Switch shipped 18.5 million for the 6 months between Q2 and Q3 FY2021. DS did 18.7 million in Q2 and Q3 2009, and 17.5m in FY2008 with 7 million in Q1 and 6 million in Q2. So, the 7 month 18m+ has been done a few times in history, just not at launch. It would be unprecedented if Switch 2 got close to those numbers.

Exactly. Now with the price hikes, if Sony follows the trend, I can see the PS5 doing 15M instead of 17/18M for this year, but still, it will be tough task for the Switch 2 to sell more than 15M in just 7 months to be able to outsell PS5 whole 2025 year.

The Switch was during the pandemic and DS was impulse buy pricing. Both had kid friendly pricing. Switch 2 may never get those numbers in it's lifetime.