Nintendo Switch sales numbers

[Shifty Geezer]

What about the 65+ million 3DS gamers? None of them are hardcore Nintendo fans?

The assumption is that every die-hard Nintendo fan bought both. Beyond that you had fans, or not even fans and just gamer, buying 3DS.

Lets face it, the 3DS had most of the big hitters the Wii U had. Mario 3D Land, Smash Bros and Mario Kart 7 gave a lot of people reason enough to pass on the Wii U. The natural progression from the 3DS will be to the Switch. 3DS and Wii U combined to sell over 75 million units to date.

I wouldn't group them as I doubt many WiiU owners didn't have a 3DS. It'll be a proportion, but my feeling is not many. Similar to how we count PS4 buyers as PS360 owners and add on Vita - if you had a Vita, you had a PS3. Sales of either 3DS or WiiU don't point to any likely outcome for Switch though as they were their own devices in their own markets and Switch operates in its own space.

 

[Entropy]

Not to mention extrapolating straight from one generation to the next is a risky proposition. Microsofts predictions were way off the mark, and they have as good market analysts as anyone even disregarding that not only do they have industry sources, they are the industry. Their predictions still failed miserably.

 

[bunnybug]

Not to mention extrapolating straight from one generation to the next is a risky proposition. Microsofts predictions were way off the mark, and they have as good market analysts as anyone even disregarding that not only do they have industry sources, they are the industry. Their predictions still failed miserably.

I disagree. Microsofts did almost everything right with 360, had a year head start, got a huge boost from kinect, multiplatform games ran better, much better controller, much better pricing, and still was out sold by ps3 in the end. you can easily predict that playstation 4 was easily gonna beat xbone handily, but thanks to Microsoft making the mistakes this gen, pricing, DRM, and weaker hardware, they are being dominated. barring major screw up from the market leader, you can easily extrapolate if the product will be successfu imo.

 

[BRiT]

[x360] was out sold by ps3 in the end

IIRC, That's still debatable.

 

[bunnybug]

IIRC, That's still debatable.

Pretty much guaranteed, but we don't have official numbers. ps3 was always selling at a faster pace and catching up to 360, even more amazing is it launched in europe. it's by far strongest territory in March 23, 2007.

 

[Entropy]

I disagree. Microsofts did almost everything right with 360, had a year head start, got a huge boost from kinect, multiplatform games ran better, much better controller, much better pricing, and still was out sold by ps3 in the end. you can easily predict that playstation 4 was easily gonna beat xbone handily, but thanks to Microsoft making the mistakes this gen, pricing, DRM, and weaker hardware, they are being dominated. barring major screw up from the market leader, you can easily extrapolate if the product will be successfu imo.

I was referring to their predictions regarding the total console market going into this generation (and of course they anticipated that they would compete for dominance).
They spectacularly missed the mark, with the One achieving a much smaller share of a much smaller pie.
Not out to ridicule Microsoft here, just pointing out that extrapolating between generations is really risky and difficult even when in the best possible position to do so.

 

[Sonic]

Yeah 360 to XB1 has been bad for MS. But not nearly as bad as going from Wii to Wii U was for Nintendo. And Wii U to Switch seems to be going rather well so far. Hopefully they will have strong enough sales this coming holiday season to keep momentum going.

I'm interested to see how strong Switch will do in North America given it usually Nintendo's strongest market.

 

[Entropy]

Just to get away from the Microsoft example, an equally valid example would be Nintendo themselves who (according to two seperate reports on digitimes from taiwanese suppliers) first allocated production of the Switch at 20 million for the first year, but then got cold feet and cut that back to 10 million. Only to find themselves unable to fill demand and a supply chain that had/has problems responding to production increase requests, costing them enormously in both straight profits and in not being able to generate the momentum they otherwise would have been able to.
The prediction business is harder than it looks from our comfy armchairs.

 

[bunnybug]

Just to get away from the Microsoft example, an equally valid example would be Nintendo themselves who (according to two seperate reports on digitimes from taiwanese suppliers) first allocated production of the Switch at 20 million for the first year, but then got cold feet and cut that back to 10 million. Only to find themselves unable to fill demand and a supply chain that had/has problems responding to production increase requests, costing them enormously in both straight profits and in not being able to generate the momentum they otherwise would have been able to.
The prediction business is harder than it looks from our comfy armchairs.

If your talking about exact numbers sure it's very difficult to predict but they do follow a trend, and it makes it easy to predict which consoles will be successful, every playstation console has sold great, even ps3 which had all the recipes for a disaster, same for nintendo handhelds, they have all sold great. Now we might see a down trend like for example 3ds/nintedo consoles(excluding wii), but these products are not gonna fail in one generation before seeing a down trend.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I disagree. Microsofts did almost everything right with 360, had a year head start, got a huge boost from kinect, multiplatform games ran better, much better controller, much better pricing, and still was out sold by ps3 in the end. you can easily predict that playstation 4 was easily gonna beat xbone handily, but thanks to Microsoft making the mistakes this gen, pricing, DRM, and weaker hardware, they are being dominated. barring major screw up from the market leader, you can easily extrapolate if the product will be successfu imo.

Your forget how RROD greatly impacted sales of the X360. It put a huge dent in its momentum. MS did as much as they could correctly, but the switch from leaded to lead free solder hit them harder initially than it did the competition due to the stronger swings between hot and cold and their initially anemic cooling solution (WRT to the switch in solder types). PS3 was also affected, but didn't show up as quickly as they had a more competent cooling solution which put off the effect until 1+ years later. Annecdotal evidence from repair shops and recycling plants show relatively similar failure rates between early PS3s and X360s. It's just that X360's failed almost immediately if they were going to fail, while PS3s often took 1+ years before the solder started to fail.

PS3 also is debatable as to whether it has outsold X360. At the end PS3 sales were slowing far faster than sales of X360. Some of us put this down to the fact that the PS4 was a far more attractive console than the XBO and hence less reasons for people to continue to buy PS3. Additionally, the X360 was always far more popular with families getting a console for their children (Minecraft being huge on X360 especially when compared to the PS3), which continued to drive strong sales for X360 long after XBO was released.

Regards,
SB

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Finally got my Switch the other day and so far I've had more fun with it in the past 4 days than I had with PC games in a long time.

Got Mariokart and Mario Odyssey and both games are just fun. Especially Odyssey. A lot of games these days try to screw the player over with lame mechanics to try and make things hard (in the wrong way) but Odyssey is just fun. From the moment I picked it up I was like okay, this is simply fun.

Obviously games look great in handheld mode. Really crisp and sharp. Colors are good too. Though I put a glass screen protector on mine (any way to get rid of the dust stuck under the screen?) with a anti glare layer and that definitely appears to take away some of the wow'ness of the screen put I'm hoping it makes me look at my own face a little less when playing.

I've only played Odyssey on my TV so far and it is less impressive. Especially if you are used to PC gaming with high screen/texture resolutions and a boatload of AA the lack of AA is noticeable. Screen resolution/textures less so but you still feel like things aren't as sharp as you're used to. It's not taking away from the experience but I guess it will impact games that go for a realistic look at lot more.

Than again, it's a handheld so it was to be expected.

So far I must say the ability to just play the same game everywhere is great. I didn't think I'd use handheld mode that much but it is just really nice to be able to pick up the Switch and play anywere. On days I don't have a lot of time I can just sit on my bed after a shower and play same games in handheld mode before going to be. If I had to sit on the couch infront of the TV I'd never do that. Very easy to underestimate just how good a feature this can be for many people.

The hardware itself looks nice and well built. My right joycon doesn't come off that smoothly and the kickstand is too hard to pull out if you have short nails which is a bit annoying. My main gripe is the screen. Should have been glass or at least come with a glass protector installed. The combination of dock & plastic screen felt like a scratch waiting to happen so I put on glass protector myself.

The dock is fine though I wish they made it a bit heavier. The pro controller feels very nice as well though the buttons feel much mushier than my Xbox one controller which I think was in some ways already a downgrade over the x360 controller. It plays nice though so maybe just a matter of getting used to. I did wish Nintendo made the ABXY buttons colored instead of all the same color.

Overall very happy with it and definitely worth the money IMO. Its the handheld mode that really makes the Switch great.

Now if Nintendo would only stop forcing motion controls...

 

[Mize]

I also recently bought a Switch. Definitely a great piece of kit. I've only played Zelda stop far but it's the first RPG to hold my attention in a long time. I actually like the motion controls for aiming in this game.

Definitely need to order a glass screen protector.

 

[Sigfried1977]

The motion controls for aiming are fantastic. The motion controls involving a small handful of shrine puzzles are infuriating, though.

And yes, Mario Odyssey is just about the most joyous experience you can have with a video game at the moment. I particularly love how the level design actually accounts for some of the more advanced jumping maneuvers you can pull off. You can clear ridiculously huge gaps and bypass large chunks of the levels if you know what you're doing in that game.

And I'm so glad I finally get to play Bayonetta in a non-shitty manner next spring.

 

[Picao84]

Nintendo sold 10 millions Switches already! But I'm confused.. I thought it was in such short supply that this number was hard to reach by the years end?

https://wccftech.com/nintendo-sold-10-million-switch-units/

I haven't bought one and won't until PSVR stops giving me a reason to use it (which is not going to be soon judging the truck load of content coming and content I have yet to play!).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Nintendo ramped up supply recently to reach a new target. And supply has been readily available this past month by accounts.

 

[Mize]

The motion controls for aiming are fantastic. The motion controls involving a small handful of shrine puzzles are infuriating, though.

Oh yeah...there's one in particular that was truly infuriating.

 

[BRiT]

Can you aim without using motion controls for those puzzles?

 

[Reznor007]

Can you aim without using motion controls for those puzzles?

The ones they are referring to are probably gyro specific ones. For example there is one that is a maze platform with a ball in it, and you tilt the joycon to control the tilt of the maze to move the ball through it, including whipping the platform up to toss the ball. Another has a floating cube with torches on each side, you must rotate it using the joycon gyro in order to light all torches at once, without dipping some in water below it, or a flow of water on one side.

Edit to clarify that actual aiming things like a bow are perfectly doable with analog sticks, but honestly motion controls work amazing for that.

 

[Goodtwin]

(any way to get rid of the dust stuck under the screen?)

The best advice I have heard is to get your bathroom a bit steamy, and put your protector on in the bathroom. The increased humidity will the dust in the room to settle to the floor. I too wish Nintendo had just gone with a tempered glass screen. I put one on within a couple weeks, but even in that short amount of time the bezzels were scuffed up a bit. At the very least Nintendo could have put some felt in the dock to prevent the scuffing. Oh well, tempered glass screen protectors are awesome and cheap.

A great milestone for Switch. It is all but guaranteed to outsell the Wii U lifetime sales in its first year on Sale. Reggie also commented that Zelda BoTW, Mario Kart 8 and Mario Odyssey have all sold 5 million units. One in four Switch owners have purchased Splatoon 2, so about 2.5 million sold. So Switch is pretty much printing money for Nintendo. All their first party games are selling well, and the hardware is selling for a profit.

 

[Recop]

I disagree. Microsofts did almost everything right with 360, had a year head start, got a huge boost from kinect, multiplatform games ran better, much better controller, much better pricing, and still was out sold by ps3 in the end.

If you compare the PS2/Xbox situation to the PS3/360 one, then the 360 is an immense win for MS. They just had to apply the exact same recipe for the XB1, but they didn't for bad reasons...