• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

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


 
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.
Nintendo puts out consoles that are hits, but also plenty that bomb. They cut the Wii U gen short for obvious reasons. They want the Switch to last as long as possible because it's selling great as is its software. There's no guarantee the next console will sell even half as well (look at Wii U, GameCube, N64).
 

Vagswarm

Member
It's definitely on track to do just that. This is how it was during the PS2 era, when every time you thought the damn thing would stop selling already, it breaks another record.
 

sendit

Member
OLeD Model

dj khaled sip GIF by Apple Music
 

mckmas8808

Banned
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).

This makes me feel like Nintendo probably is making a new Switch 2 actually. No way it comes out next year though.
 

Xellos

Member
2024 seems too far out for Switch 2. I'd question how Nintendo could support Switch in 2022/2023 and also have software ready for Switch 2 launch in 2024. Makes more sense to launch 2023 with cross-gen Switch games (Zelda) and transition to next-gen in late 2023/2024. They did that with Switch in 2017 and it worked out pretty well.

Also Switch OLED is totally a stop gap.
 

kingfey

Banned
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.
The is what happens when people ignore, the reason why people switch in the first place.

It offers something both these companies dont. Gaming on the go.

If you have a switch, you will know why people are buying it.

Can you play your xbox/playstation in the college? Or in the bus? or in the parties? Can you play it in your school? Can you play it in your work break? Can you play it in your bedroom?

These are what the switch offers.

I didnt like getting a switch before, because its games were expensive. Once i got it, i never cared about their gaming price. The convenient it has, outweighs the cost of these games.
 

Vagswarm

Member
The is what happens when people ignore, the reason why people switch in the first place.

It offers something both these companies dont. Gaming on the go.

If you have a switch, you will know why people are buying it.

Can you play your xbox/playstation in the college? Or in the bus? or in the parties? Can you play it in your school? Can you play it in your work break? Can you play it in your bedroom?

These are what the switch offers.

I didnt like getting a switch before, because its games were expensive. Once i got it, i never cared about their gaming price. The convenient it has, outweighs the cost of these games.
Not only that, but it has the type of games that people want to play on the go, and at an affordable price.
 
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.
That makes no sense. If the main reason for pro consoles was the cpu, why the fuck would they use the same cpu?! The main upgrade was gpu power and memory bandwidth in the case of one x.

We got refreshes because 4k happened.

Anyway, 2024is waaay too late.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
Nintendo puts out consoles that are hits, but also plenty that bomb. They cut the Wii U gen short for obvious reasons. They want the Switch to last as long as possible because it's selling great as is its software. There's no guarantee the next console will sell even half as well (look at Wii U, GameCube, N64).
Nintendo still make boatloads of money even from those "bombs" though.
 

FStubbs

Member
It's gonna need a huge price drop to sell that many consoles. Both PS2 and DS were less than 100 dollars at some point.
I don't know if the Switch will ever drop that low but it might not be necessary. PS4 is getting up there in sales and it is still parked at $299.

I figure the Switch OLED drops to $199 (or $249), Switch Lite drops to $149, and the Switch LCD gets dropped once the successor is on the market.
 

Marty-McFly

Banned
The Switch is closing in on 90 million, and it hasn't even had a price drop. That's unprecedented. Traditionally, most of a console's sales happed after its price is reduced. This thing will take off like a rocket when it eventually starts selling for $150.
Put me in the camp that thinks 200 million is possible.

155 seems conservative.
 

Kerotan

Member
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.
PS3 gen lasted 7 years. Ps4 7 years. Ps5 will be at least 7 but I wouldn't be surprised if they do a ps5 pro and try get the gen to last 8 or 9 this time.
 
The last time I cared about Michael Patcher, Gametrailer was still a running business.

So idk man, it's a reasonable prediction but hardly something that's a revelation.
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
?

They cannot legally lie to their shareholders like that.
You're right. For regular people there would only be the cost of the parts. But company-wise, the price covers other things like marketing and stuff.. Either way, Bloomberg was not the one to detail such things.
 

Renozokii

Member
It’s just a must have thing for a household that does any gaming IMO. I haven’t turned mine on in a solid year and could make at least 150 on it(no idea how much they go for used honestly lol) but it’s just something you want around, idk. It’s cheap, has a ton of great stuff, and has all the big Nintendo ips on it. This gen the absolute best combo is a ps5 and a switch, don’t think you’d ever run out of games to play with those.
 

EDMIX

Member
This makes me feel like Nintendo probably is making a new Switch 2 actually. No way it comes out next year though.

True.

Historically Nintendo comes out with a new system about 1 to 2 years after a new design of an old one, so 2023 sounds pretty on the mark for Switch 2.
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
Looks like the chances of getting an actual powerful portable system from Nintendo will be almost 0
 

Dr Bass

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.
The CPUs weren't touched at all in the "stop-gap" last gen consoles, the updates had nothing to do with that ...
 

yurinka

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.
The thing is consoles have a sales curve: they start and end with lower sales, and have their sales yearly peak during mid gen, around aprox its 4th year.

What we saw in the recent year or two aprox. was Switch's sales peak that all consoles have, but in this case also extra boosted by the covid related boost the other digital entertainment and internet companies also experienced. Boost that cought the other consoles in the lower parts of their sales cycle: when they are ending or when they are starting, so the boost was smaller for them. And on top of that they were also affected by the chips shortage.

What I mean is that we shouldn't expect to continue see Switch with crazy sales numbers all the upcoming years, but instead will start slowly decreasing soon and some time later to decrease faster.

In addition to this, Sony home consoles keep in the market for over 10 years, can be there for a dozen years. As an example, we saw Jim Ryan mentioning in the 'we believe in generations' interview that they will continue supporting PS4 for at least 2 or 3 years after PS5 release because there's still a huge monthly active userbase on PS4 (over 80M MAU as of now) and will continue for a while there even if they continue selling PS5s at gaming history record levels.

Meanwhile Nintendo consoles have a shorter life cycle, of around 5-6 years for most home consoles and for 8-9 years for portables and Wii. So I think we expect Switch to last until 2022-2023 or to 2025-2026, and its next gen succesor to be released a year or so before.

So I think that even if Switch as of now ahead of PS2 and PS4 in launch aligned sales, I think that in the very long run will end behind them because Sony consoles have a longer tail. As an example, PS4 will turn 8 years old soon and early next year or so will get games like Horizon 2, God of War Ragnarok or Gran Turismo 7 plus many other top selling multi or exclusive crossgen games.
 
Last edited:

Marty-McFly

Banned
The thing is consoles have a sales curve: they start and end with lower sales, and have their sales yearly peak during mid gen, around aprox its 4th year.

What we saw in the recent year or two aprox. was Switch's sales peak that all consoles have, but in this case also extra boosted by the covid related boost the other digital entertainment and internet companies also experienced. Boost that cought the other consoles in the lower parts of their sales cycle: when they are ending or when they are starting, so the boost was smaller for them. And on top of that they were also affected by the chips shortage.

What I mean is that we shouldn't expect to continue see Switch with crazy sales numbers all the upcoming years, but instead will start slowly decreasing soon and some time later to decrease faster.

In addition to this, Sony home consoles keep in the market for over 10 years, can be there for a dozen years. As an example, we saw Jim Ryan mentioning in the 'we believe in generations' interview that they will continue supporting PS4 for at least 2 or 3 years after PS5 release because there's still a huge monthly active userbase on PS4 (over 80M MAU as of now) and will continue for a while there even if they continue selling PS5s at gaming history record levels.

Meanwhile Nintendo consoles have a shorter life cycle, of around 5-6 years for most home consoles and for 8-9 years for portables and Wii. So I think we expect Switch to last until 2022-2023 or to 2025-2026, and its next gen succesor to be released a year or so before.

So I think that even if Switch as of now ahead of PS2 and PS4 in launch aligned sales, I think that in the very long run will end behind them because Sony consoles have a longer tail. As an example, PS4 will turn 8 years old soon and early next year or so will get games like Horizon 2, God of War Ragnarok or Gran Turismo 7 plus many other top selling multi or exclusive crossgen games.
The DS was on the market for 9 years and the Switch is selling faster than ever in its 5th year without a price drop and games like BOTW2 on the horizon.

I think Nintendo keeps their platforms out for as long as they see them selling.

The Wii was kind of weird because it's gimmicky control scheme sold to a casual demographic who abandoned it after a few years. It really did not have a traditional sales curve like most other platforms. The Wii U was a complete flop. These platforms didn't last because the sales didn't last. Switch seems to be in the opposite predicament.
 
Last edited:

yurinka

Member
The DS was on the market for 9 years and the Switch is selling faster than ever in its 5th year without a price drop and games like BOTW2 on the horizon.

I think Nintendo keeps their platforms out for as long as they see them selling.
Yes, as I mentioned Wii and Nintendo portables traditionally were in the market during 8-9 years. While the other home consoles around 5-6 years. When they stop selling, quite frequently 'shortly' (compared to Sony generational transitions) after their successor gets released and starts getting most big games.

I think the upcoming Pokemons and BoTW2 will sell great. The next supersellers after them should be I think unannounced Mario Kart 9 and a big 3D Mario. But not sure if we'll se both as Switch exclusive or if we'll get them as Switch 2 crossgen launch games somewhere around 2023 (and then they'd discontinue Switch in 2024-2025).

As I mentioned before, it's expected to sell better than ever at this point of its lifecycle since all consoles and handhelds to so at this point. And on top of that, it had the extra of the covid. Plus now that 3DS is discontinued, it has the handheld market monopoly plus Nintendo's home console market+Nintendo's handheld market combined for itself.
 

Marty-McFly

Banned
Yes, as I mentioned Wii and Nintendo portables traditionally were in the market during 8-9 years. While the other home consoles around 5-6 years. When they stop selling, quite frequently 'shortly' (compared to Sony generational transitions) after their successor gets released and starts getting most big games.

I think the upcoming Pokemons and BoTW2 will sell great. The next supersellers after them should be I think unannounced Mario Kart 9 and a big 3D Mario. But not sure if we'll se both as Switch exclusive or if we'll get them as Switch 2 crossgen launch games somewhere around 2023 (and then they'd discontinue Switch in 2024-2025).

As I mentioned before, it's expected to sell better than ever at this point of its lifecycle since all consoles and handhelds to so at this point. And on top of that, it had the extra of the covid. Plus now that 3DS is discontinued, it has the handheld market monopoly plus Nintendo's home console market+Nintendo's handheld market combined for itself.
That's not completely accurate. The Wii fell off in it's fourth year while Switch posted the highest sales ever in it's fourth year with 28.8 million in sales. To put that in perspective the PS4's best year was 20 million. Nintendo said fairly recently that they wanted to redefine a platforms lifecycle and that the Switch was only halfway through its lifecycle.

It seems as though there will be many games, revisions, and even price drops ahead to sustain momentum over the next several years.
 
Last edited:
That's not completely accurate. The Wii fell off in it's fourth year while Switch posted the highest sales ever in it's fourth year with 28.8 million in sales. To put that in perspective the PS4's best year was 20 million. Nintendo said fairly recently that they wanted to redefine a platforms lifecycle and that the Switch was only halfway through its lifecycle.

It seems as though there will be many games, revisions, and even price drops ahead to sustain momentum over the next several years.
I think the Switch will have a long life cycle because Nintendo don’t really have a sustainable follow up. There is only so much power you can get out of a cheap handheld.
 

yurinka

Member
That's not completely accurate. The Wii fell off in it's fourth year while Switch posted the highest sales ever in it's fourth year with 28.8 million in sales. To put that in perspective the PS4's best year was 20 million. Nintendo said fairly recently that they wanted to redefine a platforms lifecycle and that the Switch was only halfway through its lifecycle.

It seems as though there will be many games, revisions, and even price drops ahead to sustain momentum over the next several years.
Obviously not all consoles (or handhelds) perform in exactly the same way but they follow the trend of slow early sales during the first years, big sales peak somewhere around between 3rd and 5th year (it varies for each one) and then sales start to go down after that to have slow late sales during their last years.

Wii is a very rare case, different from the norm. Its sales peak was way higher than usual, way earlier than usual and after it stopped in a stronger way than usual.

Nintendo said they have no 'Pro' revisions coming, said Switch is in the middle of if lifetime (matching more or less what I said of Nintendo handhelds lasting around 8-9 years). They could have this year Pokemon, next year BotW2, then in 2023 release Switch 2 with crossgen Odyssey and Mario Kart and then discontinue Switch on late 2024 or 2025.
 
Last edited:

Marty-McFly

Banned
I think the Switch will have a long life cycle because Nintendo don’t really have a sustainable follow up. There is only so much power you can get out of a cheap handheld.
I think the need for a more powerful Switch is more pressing to forum gamers because we're the hardcore, but putting yourself in Nintendo's position, where 95% of Switch sales come from their own first party games anyway, they are probably hard pressed to care whether the platform remains powerful enough to keep up with 3rd party multiplats seeing as to how they get so few anyway, and how little impact they have on Nintendo's bottom line.

I can easily see the Switch skating by on first party titles, indies and remasters of old games just as it has been doing its entire lifecycle.
 
Last edited:
How the hell do Nintendo do it? Shit hardware and barely any software yet they manage sales numbers that are unheard of! 28m in one year is insane. I guess Japan plays a huge part.
 
Top Bottom