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Analyst: Lifetime Switch sales to eclipse PS2, NO Switch Pro, new Nintendo console in 2024

ManaByte

Member

He predicts that the OLED Model will sell around five million units by the end of 2021, after which it will "slowly replace the current flagship [model]" over the course of 2022. Ampere Analysis expects this to contribute to an increase in sales for the Switch family of devices, which it expects to sell more than 155 million units by the end of 2025. If Nintendo achieves this, it would make Switch the biggest selling console of all time, just ahead of the PS2's lifetime sales and a full million ahead of the DS family, Nintendo's current record holder.

Harding-Rolls also believes another Switch is still in the works, but doesn't expect to see it any time soon: "I don't see the Switch OLED as a stopgap release before a more powerful version of the Switch is brought to market -- I'm not expecting a Switch 'Pro' in 2022 and think it's probably too late in the cycle to introduce that sort of device. I think Nintendo will wait to introduce more power in its next-generation console which I currently expect to launch at the end of 2024."
 

ultrazilla

Member
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All are very reasonable predictions, however after the overwhelmingly successful launch of the Switch in Spring of 2017, I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo decides to launch their "Switch 2" console during Spring 2024. This would give it separation from the stop-gap consoles from Sony and Microsoft if they come out Holiday 2024.
 
It all depends on how long Nintendo drags this generation out. The Switch is closing in on 5 years and it feels like a successor isn't even on Nintendo's radar with how well it's still selling. In fact, they went out of their way to raise the price (the OLED costs $10 more to make).
 
I doubt Switch can reach 120 million. The interest for the new gen consoles is too strong and supply-constrained to be overlooked. By the time offer begins to catch up with demand for PS5 and XS, the Switch sales are going to be taking a serious hit. This will make Nintendo rush the launch of their new Switch for 2024, meaning they won't have great games ready for launch since they expected to sell gangbusters with little opposition until 2025 at least, but they're going to be unpleasantly surprised when by the end of 2022 their sales have taken a nosedive.
 
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I doubt there will be stop-gap consoles this cycle. The only reason we got them last time was because they went cheap with mobile Jaguar CPUs. The CPUs this time around are more than enough to cover the entire generation.
I don't know about that. Enabling ray-tracing already makes the XSX and PS5 run at 30fps and sub 1440p resolution. I would think they will try to aim for 60fps ray-tracing with the next iteration/upgrade.
 
I doubt Switch can reach 120 million. The interest for the new gen consoles is too strong and supply-constrained to be overlooked. By the time offer begins to catch up with demand for PS5 and XS, the Switch sales are going to be taking a serious hit. This will make Nintendo rush the launch of their new Switch for 2024, meaning they won't have great games ready for launch since they expected to sell gangbusters with little opposition until 2025 at least, but they're going to be unpleasantly surprised when by the end of 2022 their sales have taken a nosedive.
Nintendo die-hards are a different breed though. I know people personally that buy a new Switch every time a collector's edition version comes around. It's not uncommon for people to own 2-3 switches.
 

Quasicat

Member
I believe that at one point there was a Switch Pro planned…in fact, it was probably going to be on the same model as the new OLED screen. They have the chips already established with the current model, but a new chipset would require new cost negotiations which would be more expensive. Nintendo does not want to eat these costs or pass them on when they are still selling their current model like crazy.
Things change all the time, especially in recent years with the chip shortages we are seeing.
 
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kingfey

Banned
I doubt Switch can reach 120 million. The interest for the new gen consoles is too strong and supply-constrained to be overlooked. By the time offer begins to catch up with demand for PS5 and XS, the Switch sales are going to be taking a serious hit. This will make Nintendo rush the launch of their new Switch for 2024, meaning they won't have great games ready for launch since they expected to sell gangbusters with little opposition until 2025 at least, but they're going to be unpleasantly surprised when by the end of 2022 their sales have taken a nosedive.
They will surpass it easily.
"The latest official global sales figures, shared by Nintendo back in May, show that Switch had sold 84.59 million units worldwide as of March 31st 2021. That number will naturally have risen quite substantially since then, moving the Switch ever closer to the Wii's mighty lifetime sales total of 101.63 million units".
That is a 4 years console sale. The ps4 had to sell 116m in 8 years. It had 3 upgrades, which boosted its sales. The switch took 4 years to hit 84.5m with minimum hardware upgrades.

Unless Nintendo wants to do new hardware, the switch will hit 120m easily.
 

tr1p1ex

Member
I doubt Switch can reach 120 million. The interest for the new gen consoles is too strong and supply-constrained to be overlooked. By the time offer begins to catch up with demand for PS5 and XS, the Switch sales are going to be taking a serious hit. This will make Nintendo rush the launch of their new Switch for 2024, meaning they won't have great games ready for launch since they expected to sell gangbusters with little opposition until 2025 at least, but they're going to be unpleasantly surprised when by the end of 2022 their sales have taken a nosedive.
Nah. Sales could drop a lot in 2022. But they'll be ready. They've never gone over 6 years 3 months before launching a next gen console.

And given sales are already 85 million as of March. 120 million seems doable. Remember they have room to lower the price and/or bundle in games as well.
 
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Termite

Member
The Switch is fundamentally a handheld console. Those age and are replaced quicker than standard consoles.

I also expect Nintendo to try and maintain momentum between generations rather than squandering it like they did between the Wii and Wii U where they let sales trail off before introducing the new machine. Sales are still sky-high now, that doesn't mean they will be in 18 months. The time for planning for the sales slowing down is now, not once it happens.

For these reasons I see Nintendo riding the OLED model for holiday this year, all of next year, and then introducing Switch 2 in 2023. But what will really determine when it appears is whenever the maths works out on whatever chip Nintendo is looking at as an appropriate successor.

March 2023 would be the 6th anniversary of the Switch launch. March 2024 would be the 7th anniversary - that's a long damn time for handheld tech to not get a spec bump. My guess is we see it between those two dates.
 
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Unknown?

Member
I doubt it unless they can get Switch light to $129 and regular Switch to $229. Sells after 100 million are based on price alone.
 
Or to be accurate to what was implied in the article, that should be a "may eclipse" rather than a "will eclipse" as they do understand there are still unknowns for the next four years and they aren't dealing in absolutes so they do use "if" to substantiate what they say.
 

ShirAhava

Plays with kids toys, in the adult gaming world
The reason for the PS4 Pro was actually PSVR.

This is true the base model wouldn't have been able to handle VR well at all the spec bump put it right with the GTX 970 level requirement at the time

4k/hdr on the PS4 Pro was always a marketing gimmick people who actually bought into that basically got scammed checkerboarding doesn't even come close to actual 4K
 

Zannegan

Member
But which analyst? Dun dun duuun!

Seriously though, the article cites two analysts, one of whom thinks there's still a pro coming while the other thinks the OLED is the only real upgrade before the successor. There's no real concensus there, even among the crystal ball users.

Both do agree that 2024 is the Switch 2 sweet spot though, which is a little disappointing (if true). I'm hoping for Spring 2023, but then my predictions always go full-on Veruca Salt.
 
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They will surpass it easily.
"The latest official global sales figures, shared by Nintendo back in May, show that Switch had sold 84.59 million units worldwide as of March 31st 2021. That number will naturally have risen quite substantially since then, moving the Switch ever closer to the Wii's mighty lifetime sales total of 101.63 million units".
That is a 4 years console sale. The ps4 had to sell 116m in 8 years. It had 3 upgrades, which boosted its sales. The switch took 4 years to hit 84.5m with minimum hardware upgrades.

Unless Nintendo wants to do new hardware, the switch will hit 120m easily.
We'll see. Again, even if they are in a bit different league than Sony and MS, once the demand is met for the new gen consoles, interest for the Switch has only one way to go: down.
 

tr1p1ex

Member
Nintendo themselves predicted 25 million sales this fiscal year which ends in march. 85 million were sold by end of last fiscal year. So Nintendo estimates 110 million Switches sold by March 2022.
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
It doesn't take an analyst to tell us there's no Switch Pro. Nintendo already made that clear.
 

Bragr

Banned
It's never gonna hit PS2 numbers, it would need to have the same momentum as it has now for another 3 to 4 years. Which is not gonna happen.

The PS2 came out at a time when it was the sole king of consoles. The GameCube was not a big seller, the Xbox never sold a lot, the Dreamcast was the Dreamcast, and the PS1 was a massive success and carried over to the PS2 hype, as well as the DVD on the PS2, which made it sell millions alone. It was perfect circumstances, and it made the PS2 hit insane numbers.

The one thing that the Switch has going for it is that the market is a lot bigger, and games and consoles generally sell more, but I think the PS2 is untouchable because the PC, PS5, and Series X will bleed too many sales over time for the Switch to maintain the current drive.
 

spons

Gold Member
It's gonna be 2023 for the successor. They'll likely use a then-current AMD APU like all consoles and the Steam Deck, ditching native backwards compatibility once again. N64 will finally be offered on the online service, but only after two years of NES and SNES games. Although Nintendo is unwilling to release emulated versions of GameCube games on it, you can buy a Zelda 37.5th anniversary collection physically for 6 months before they cease production.
 

Bragr

Banned
I doubt Switch can reach 120 million. The interest for the new gen consoles is too strong and supply-constrained to be overlooked. By the time offer begins to catch up with demand for PS5 and XS, the Switch sales are going to be taking a serious hit. This will make Nintendo rush the launch of their new Switch for 2024, meaning they won't have great games ready for launch since they expected to sell gangbusters with little opposition until 2025 at least, but they're going to be unpleasantly surprised when by the end of 2022 their sales have taken a nosedive.
March 2017: Launch
March 2018: 15 million
March 2019: 34 million
March 2020: 53 million
March 2021: 84 million

At this pace, it's gonna fly past 120 million sometime next year.
 

Kerotan

Member
I doubt there will be stop-gap consoles this cycle. The only reason we got them last time was because they went cheap with mobile Jaguar CPUs. The CPUs this time around are more than enough to cover the entire generation.
Not if they want the gen to last longer which they do.
 
They're not making more profit with the Switch OLED.

 
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SCB3

Member
Gotta agree here, I personally don't think they're will be a Switch "Pro" now, once the OLED version is out I fully expect Nintendo to focus on the next console, a Switch 2 for simplicity, its what they did with the Wii and Wii U
 

ethomaz

Banned
Well I believe because the Tech is not here yet when it got ready we have a new Nintendo console and not a Switch Pro indeed.

Switch Pro makes no sense at all.

About PS2 level of sales or even 3DS just the time will tell… I still believe it will reach around 120-130m.
 
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spons

Gold Member
Not if they want the gen to last longer which they do.
Last longer than what and why? These consoles will run fine for the coming 4 to 5 years. Jaguar actively hampered game development. What happened with the Xbox One and PS4 was an exception, not the rule.
 

graywolf323

Gold Member
They will surpass it easily.
"The latest official global sales figures, shared by Nintendo back in May, show that Switch had sold 84.59 million units worldwide as of March 31st 2021. That number will naturally have risen quite substantially since then, moving the Switch ever closer to the Wii's mighty lifetime sales total of 101.63 million units".
That is a 4 years console sale. The ps4 had to sell 116m in 8 years. It had 3 upgrades, which boosted its sales. The switch took 4 years to hit 84.5m with minimum hardware upgrades.

Unless Nintendo wants to do new hardware, the switch will hit 120m easily.

I feel like you're missing the obvious thing of while the PS4 had upgrades, the Switch can more easily have multiple consoles sold per a household than a regular console would

either both parents in a couple having their own or each of the kids having their own Switch (or both of those situations)
 

Blond

Banned
Switch will have to be lucky to do that. That 100 dollar price point the PS2 eventually hit and even later 50 dollars put it into impulse territory when you consider the sheer variety of affordable games by that point made it a “fuck it, why not?” Purchase. If the Switch Lite somehow manages to hit 150 I see it hitting that number easily.
 
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