Please we need Switch 1 to reach 165 million and be the biggest console of all the time !!

Switch 2 can de 162 million and get 2nd place !!

Switch 2 will beat Switch 1 at launch. It has more momentum coming out on the back of Switch 1, Nintendo is in a much better place now than it was in 2017. But more importantly Nintendo will be expecting strong demand and ship larger amounts of stock than Switch 1 accordingly.

As for LT, no I don't think Switch 2 will get anywhere near 172m.

Good job on getting this one started, although you could have set the bar 10 million units lower to be a bit less bold while still aiming for the whereabouts of the title "best-selling console of all-time."

As for a spreadsheet, it looks more daunting than it really is. Setting up the framework takes one to two hours depending on how much you want to polish it, but quarterly updates for five different tabs take only around 30 minutes combined, so that's just two hours a year.

What's unique about this generation is all the uncertainty that is outside of Nintendo's control, namely the tremendous stupidity of the Trump administration that could even make us enter a global recession. Entertainment is recession-proof to a certain degree, but there's no way of knowing how the next few years will play out, especially because Trump himself has no idea what he's doing either; he's clearly winging it.

The uncertainty for us that is in Nintendo's control is the direction they will take their IPs into. Nintendo is secretive about that, so we don't know what awaits us in 2026 and beyond. There's never a guarantee that the next entry in any given series will hit it out of the park, plus there's the fact that so much about Switch 1 has set high bars for sales records, so even if Switch 2 ends up being very successful, it might not be quite successful enough to set new records.

The Mario and Zelda movie(s) may be a key factor for the Switch 2 to reach 172 million. But I still think it would be better if the tittle were "The road to 160M ..."

All I have is just some initial ranges I played around with. After playing around with a few different sets of ranges I went with this one.  My guess falls into the upper area.  As far as slowly making up for the Covid sales, I'm taking into account that moving into an all digital world is going to sour users of other platforms that prefer physical media.  Though it may not be a huge percentage, even a small percentage of 4%-8% is a large chunk of gamers.  

Another variable I've been looking at is the Xbox user base. I don't think it just's going to disappear, they're going to go somewhere if Xbox isn't going to do anything to keep them on their devices.  Some will go to PC and Playstation, but moving over to Nintendo is going to offer the most value once exclusive games and pricing are factored in. 

Another area that allows for growth is the hardware capabilities of the Switch 2.  CoD, Halo, Gears, Destiny, GTA?, Sports(Football, NBA, Fifa),Racing type games are now going to be able to run on the platform (I'd expect 3rd party developers to take full advantage of that). It can also entice the consumers that only purchase a console to play just the one game/series to now have a 3rd option.

The digital part mostly depends on if the PS6 will have a disc drive option which I do think it likely will though that is at least somewhat up in the air. Even if it doesn't the physical situation on Switch 2 not exactly being ideal so far could reduce the impact though it could gain some physical diehards down the line sure.

I expect most of the remaining Xbox user base to eventually migrate to PC due to factors like a portion of the game library carrying over with Play Anywhere and so far that's probably already the case for the ones that have migrated considering that the PS5 is not making up for the decline of Xbox at all with it being a bit behind the PS4 worldwide. Even in the US where it's 7% ahead of the PS4 the Xbox Series is about 20% behind the Xbox One so far. Playstation will still get a significant amount especially going forward due to it now getting Xbox games and a lot of people preferring the console experience though I don't see many choosing to make the Switch 2 their main platform since big games will run much better on the PS5 and especially later on with the PS6 and a lot of those games will either skip the Switch 2 or be a late port. It should be by far the least common option former Xbox users pick to switch to.

It will get a lot more big games than the Switch got though so you're completely right about the hardware capabilities helping it out. The Switch 2 will be more viable as a main platform though the gap between it and the PS6 will still be huge. Also for the image I definitely lean towards the low end of the range since I really doubt its peak years will be that high due to its price. Even with covid the Switch only had a couple years above 20m and the DS was really cheap so it wasn't too tough for a lot of parents to buy three of them for all their kids. Since I don't expect the Switch 3 or whatever to come out till late 2033 I think the peak years will be somewhat lower and 2032-2033 higher.

Predicting Switch 2 to hit 172 million units is almost as wild as predicting it will hit 200 million units.
Switch 2 will probably be replaced after 6 to 7.5 years, not over 8 years.
Could it outsell Switch's first year? Sure, that's possible. The long haul is not as promising.

I think launch year Switch 2 will win over Switch. Nintendo is likely pumping out tons of systems this time around, whereas with the Switch they were coming off the WiiU failure and were conservative in how many systems they were producing and it was super hard to find one in 2017.

I'm guessing Switch 2 will have a record breaking launch day/month, but then after that initial period of everyone who wants it right away and will pay any price, by like late Summer I think sales will fall off, but then still have a good holiday season as it'll be the hot new gaming thing to have and end up easily beating Switch's 2017 sales. 2026 though might be kinda rough for Switch 2 after that initial launch crowd and holiday crowd is done buying and you start hitting up against the base that doesn't want to pay sky high prices for a system and games.

Nintendo's awful pricing strategy for Switch 2 will be an interesting thing to watch. They are basically testing how badly they can fleece their fans before they stop buying Nintendo. If this strategy wins, consumers lose big time and we can expect prices to keep getting jacked up every gen unlike the pretty stable pricing of the past two decades. If the strategy fails Nintendo will have egg on their face and have to drastically reduce prices, a 3DS scenario, which will be good for the industry and consumers. Here's hoping for the latter! Or worst case scenario, after a couple years they release both a Lite and a Home model at a more affordable $350 price at which point sales start to rebound. But if Nintendo doesn't do anything to make next gen have good affordable options I think it'll be limited to around 100m, definitely not 172m haha

I do think they'll sale 30m+ again in Japan, because that's the one place where the system is actually affordable, and affordability may be the only thing stopping this system from perhaps being the most successful system ever overall, assuming the rather weak launch period first party lineup is not indicative of what software lineup is gonna be in general.

I would've been willing to entertain this possibility if not for the current global economic situation. There was a period of time from about 1997-2006 where Nintendo consistently averaged just above 20 million consoles sold yearly, and assuming the Switch 2 is to follow that pace it would certainly be in contention, but considering the way things are looking I think it would be pretty reasonable to assume the market is due for a contraction.

Just 20 more days to go! Getting anxious.

Had a few suggestions for lowing the amount for the title and will heed. If for any reason the Switch 1 finishes above 162m, I will raise the amount by a million above Switch 1.