Woopah
Member
I do think they will cut the price this year, but not as low as $99.
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ComputerBlue
Member
It will, and if at some point it gets a price cut (which I doubt it will) but if it does then it will easily do it.
crackajack
Member
Considering it is battling against the ever growing mobile behemoth, kinda being between that and "regular" gaming, the number is hardly not crazy good. It would only be more bonkers if they actually did wii+DS numbers, which it is replacing, with the less succesful wiiu+3DS step between.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
We just don't agree on the merits of the argument. Switch Lite is a Switch game player, that exclusively plays Switch games. In my opinion, whether or not it has the capability to dock to a television or not is irrelevant. The user who decides to purchase a Switch Lite over a standard Switch makes that decision for themself. And I'm just not sure why that distinction matters at all, for the purposes of this debate.
We're counting Switch sales as any Switch game player in the Switch family. Carving out ones to make an argument that it hasn't sold as much as it has is completely lost on me, as an argument.
Mentioning NES or GameBoy or Game Gear makes no sense, because all of those systems have unique libraries and there was no cross-compatibility. The only time I'd agree that it makes logical sense to carve sales out of a system's LTD sales, would be if someone attemped to lump Game Boy and Game Boy Color together. GBC was a successor to Game Boy, and had it's own unique library. It's got nothing to do with backward compatibility. You can lump GameBoy and Game Boy Pocket together, sure. GBP was just a cosmetic iteration, same exact library, and was a continuation of the original Game Boy line of hardware.
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Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Luminoth-4545
Member
The console is still selling well in Japan but massively down in U.S and Europe. For Q1 (April to June) last fiscal year it shipped 3.91 million, it's looking like 1.8 to 2.1 million this Q1 so a big year over year drop off although similar to last quarters 1.96 million. There is no way they will hit their 13.5 million fiscal year forecast (only 14% down on last FY 15.7m) without one or maybe two price cuts.
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Luminoth-4545
Member
Double post
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BlackTron
Member
Did you read my post? To make a point I made an example with Game Boy, a well-selling portable, had it played NES games instead, or the Sega Nomad, a poor-selling portable that actually did play Genesis games. It's fine if you disagree with me, but come on lol.
Game Gear was only mentioned as the platform you would compare GB to as the competing portable of the day, nothing more.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Why wouldn’t Nomad count? It was a Genesis and it connected to a TV. It was even called the Genesis Nomad. Why wouldn’t it count as a Genesis? Seems to check all the boxes. I just don’t see the point of comparison with this argument some have of why Switch Lite shouldn’t count as a Switch.
BlackTron
Member
Yes, and I admitted that connecting to the TV made it very Switch-like, and for this reason a better example would be Game Boy had it played NES games. Congrats you have now read my post.
nordique
Member
Stop bro you’re over thinking it
It’s a switch. Same hardware same games. just cheaper cause it doesn’t connect to a tv.
Don’t over intellectualize this stuff
{insert code here}
Member
If they can get the lite down to 99$ that should put them over the hump. I remember PS2 sold decent post-360 when it dropped to 99$.
I think it's more interesting to think of it regionally:
Europe- won't outsell.
NA - maybe/maybe not.
Japan - massively outsold PS2 already, and 'may' be on track to 'double' the PS2 LTD (I think that'd actually be more notable than any other record - especially given how Japan was the first country where people proclaimed consoles (and handhelds) were dead - shortly after even the Wii bombed there.
And yet here we are - a single console crossing (at least)35M sold. To put this number into perspective - in US, a market 3x the size - the last 4 Sony consoles all failed to cross that number (PS2 was the last to have done so).
Europe- won't outsell.
NA - maybe/maybe not.
Japan - massively outsold PS2 already, and 'may' be on track to 'double' the PS2 LTD (I think that'd actually be more notable than any other record - especially given how Japan was the first country where people proclaimed consoles (and handhelds) were dead - shortly after even the Wii bombed there.
And yet here we are - a single console crossing (at least)35M sold. To put this number into perspective - in US, a market 3x the size - the last 4 Sony consoles all failed to cross that number (PS2 was the last to have done so).
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Dr. Wilkinson
Member
In the US and Europe, depending how long it goes until the successor is out, a price drop and/or some kind of new revision like a Mini or a Micro would likely tie it with PS2 and/or put it over the top in the next 2 years before sales dry up entirely.
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
What are the numbers for Switch, PS2 and DS for US and Europe?
Also, why look at the US and not the Americas as a whole?
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Someone listen to this person. Please.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Huh? If we agree, why are you arguing? And again this Game Boy hypothetically playing NES games thing has nothing to do with this debate. Cross-generation compatibility doesn't matter. It doesn't change what a system within a family of systems being counted as a whole number means.
Switch Lite is absolutely a member of the Switch family, and thus is counted as a sale of a Switch device. There are people trying to figure out a way to mentally pretzel an argument to try and carve them out and pretend like they are not Switches, but it's just flatly wrong on it's face.
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killatopak
Member
All depends on Switch 2 BC.
NSW is close to surpass PS2 final LTD in US. It's matter of mere months.
Yea sorry - I had NA/Europe swapped in my head.
Switch is 20M behind in Europe - unless it keeps selling for another decade, it's not catching up there.
NA is apparently already basically there in latest Nintendo update (54M) so my info was out of date.
I did mean NA - just a typo, and Switch already tied/passed PS2 there it seems, and has about 3M to go to catch NDS.
Europe it's about 20M behind.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
20M is likely insurmountable at this point, yeah. I would say though, that regardless of breaking the unit sales out per region, because Switch is selling so well still in every major region, cumulatively overall I think it will match or exceed PS2 in the long-run, once production completely ends in ~2027 or so. The additional sales in NA, JP and elsewhere would have more than made up for the gulf in sales from Europe.
Europe is PS Country, no doubt about it.
AncientOrigin
Member
I think switch 2 will bomb.And the reason for that is the switch is mostly owned by casuals family with kids not hardcore gamers.Si they don’t care or they only care if their kids care and want the newest switch.Especially with the same name Switch 2 or Switch pro people who don’t visit gaming sites will think it’s the same with a few different functions.I think Switch 2 will be between 50-80 million compared to Switch 1 it will bomb hard
Europe is a bunch of different Countries.
As an example Switch has already outsold PS2 in France.
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BlackTron
Member
So it's a Switch that does not Switch cut down to both the role and price point of a Game Boy. If we want to start counting hardware units differently because times changed that's fine, but it comes with a big asterisk when comparing to a system like PS2 before this change. Which was my only point from the beginning, beating PS2 by 1 million isn't the victory everyone makes it out to be when the rules have changed in the interim. We know from history how sizable Nintendo's portable market can be, and their home console has absorbed all that in its numbers, without even having to be a home console.
Ogbert
Member
I’m pretty sure becoming the greatest selling console of all time is a victory.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Wow I had no idea!
It’s an expression. I’m not even the one who came up with it. It doesn’t mean a literal country. Obviously. Some people on here… lmao, just wow
It’s no secret that Nintendo in Europe tends have more success in France in particular vs other countries in that region.
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Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Again, not to pile on too much, but how is counting every Switch sold "counting hardware units differently"? What rules have changed?
Any Switch-branded device made by Nintendo that plays Switch software as the primary function is a Switch device, counted as such. The mental gymnastics at play to try and justify not counting a Switch as a Switch is really quite extraordinary to me. If hypothetically Nintendo released a Switch Micro for $119 that played all Switch games, it would count as a Switch unit. That would still more expensive than what a lot of PS2s sold for, particularly in the last few years.
If price point is your main argument, then you would be even more on the wrong side, because most PS2s sold were at or below $200. Switch has never received a price cut in over 7 years, and the vast majority of Switches sold since 2021 are the OLED model, which is $350 and has never been discounted, ever. So is your argument that the amount it's sold for diminishes counting it? Then wouldn't you have to carve out all of the tens of millions of PS2s sold for $99 in the last couple years of it's life? That seems to work against your whole argument.
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BlackTron
Member
It's a victory, but do we have to ignore that they did it by combining two existing markets? Basically the old "Game Boy" segment became Switch Lite. This would be noteworthy if Lite didn't exist just because Switch is a hybrid. But having the dirt cheap portable-only "game boy" role that the Lite has is a huge asterisk when comparing the console to say PS1 or PS2. Even though you couldn't count PSP in with PS1's sales, which could play PS1 games as a standard feature. In one case the portable market is included and the other it isn't, due to clever semantics.
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Dr. Wilkinson
Member
A) (Bolded) Even if this is true, that doesn't work in your argument to ignore Switch Lite sales as a Switch
B) $200 is "dirt cheap"? Many PS2s sold for $99. So how does that support your argument? And again, is your argument that the price point of a videogame console unit means it can be ignored and taken out of the unit sales? When has that ever happened in the history of counting things?
C) You keep bringing up the PSP. Why? It didn't play PS2 games, it didn't have any compatibility at all with PS2 software, it was an entirely separate platform with a wholly separate software library all of it's own. PSP hardware sales are what they are. There's no adding or subtracting based on what other PS-branded device might be backward compatible with PSP software. Backward compatibility has never, ever been considered before when counting hardware unit sales of a specific generation.
I don't see any clever semantics here. You either agree to count something or you don't. 1+1=2. That is what society has agreed is good mathematics. The only rules that are changing are rules that you are trying to invent.
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BlackTron
Member
Being the cheaper option went hand-in-hand with being the strictly portable option. Switch didn't reach a lower price by reducing the cost of the package like PS2 did. They did it by having a version that only works as a Game Boy.
TropicanaTwista
Member
Tough to say. The sales for the switch seem to be drying, so not sure if it's gonna have any legs after switch 2 drops. Also, didn't Jim Ryan say the PS2 sold over 160 mil? Guessing that was never publicly released from Sony but don't see why he would lie about that lol.
If I had to guess, maybe like a 33% chance it hits the 155 mil mark. Doubtful it could hit the 160 mark, unless Nintendo really fucks up switch 2
If I had to guess, maybe like a 33% chance it hits the 155 mil mark. Doubtful it could hit the 160 mark, unless Nintendo really fucks up switch 2
cartman414
Member
PS2 also got that bump from emerging markets after PS3 came out in key areas.
Lunarorbit
Member
Agreeded. 15 million is alot of units in its last year
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
You keep saying Game Boy. PSP. Man it’s getting to the point where we’re just repeating ourselves. Nintendo literally reduced the price of the Switch by reducing the cost to build it. Same as what Sony and every other platform manufacturer has done over the last 40 years over the life of a game system. Your argument continues to baffle me.
How does a Switch system not count as a sale of a Switch system. ?
You aren’t able to provide that answer, so far.
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Ogbert
Member
But why do you overlook the fact that the PS2 combined the console market with the consumer dvd player market?
Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but millions of people bought a PS2 for the sole reason of watching DVDs. Shouldn’t we place an asterisk against those sales numbers?
BlackTron
Member
I feel that you are intentionally reading my posts in a way that mean the least sense possible. When I said Switch Lite only works as a Game Boy, it was in the context that it's a strictly portable device. There's not much debate on that fact, but your comment makes it appear like I am relentlessly doubling down on some point we already discussed.
BlackTron
Member
Ogbert
Member
Switch being portable is nothing like as significant a boost as the PS2 being the World’s cheapest mass market DVD player.
The DVD market is fundamentally different to the video game market. Middle aged men and women that had never player a video game in their lives bought PS2s so they could watch movies. That is a whole *new* market that is being tapped into, hence the sales numbers.
That a Switch can also be played portably is simply a variation within the same underlying market.
The DVD market is fundamentally different to the video game market. Middle aged men and women that had never player a video game in their lives bought PS2s so they could watch movies. That is a whole *new* market that is being tapped into, hence the sales numbers.
That a Switch can also be played portably is simply a variation within the same underlying market.
ReyBrujo
Member
I guess most of those in that camp were born after PS2 was released so they never knew the impact being the cheapest DVD player had back then.
TheGodfather07
Member
With a price cut they will do it for sure but without one, I'm not sure. Switch sales have slowed down alot this year and will do even more once the switch 2 is officially revealed. Unless they cut the price at the same time. If they do, switch could hit 160m. Either way it's gonna be close.
Ogbert
Member
Perhaps.
For the record, I don’t think it diminishes PS2’s success at all. Sony were able to leverage their AV expertise with their console and turn it into an even more successful proposition.
I just think Nintendo should be granted the same courtesy. But there always seems to be this nitpicking, as if iterations and additional benefits to their console somehow discounts their achievements.
Numbers don’t lie. It is what it is.
Kataploom
Gold Member
Don't overcomplicate, it's sold as a Switch and plays Switch games, therefore people buys it for being a Switch not "for being something like a switch that does this, that, and whatever but not totally Switch but kinda, but this, but, but, so it counts".
Switch Lite is a Switch, no matter if it's only portable or can be docked, the arbitrary criteria some put to say why something count and why something doesn't, and specially, I don't get why being portable or home console matters
Woopah
Member
If Nintendo had released a NES revision called the "NES Pocket", then that revision would have counted towards total sales of the platform.
Like how the Vita TV revision is included in total sales of the Vita.
Kataploom
Gold Member
It's one single market: Videogames.
It's one platform: The device that plays Switch games, sold as a Switch by Nintendo.
You're trying too hard lol
Luminoth-4545
Member
Platform Totals
Total worldwide sales (in millions of units) per platform. For all platforms that are no longer manufactured, all figures are total shipments from manufacturers. For current platforms, all figures are current sales as measured by VGChartzType: Hardware Software Tie-Ratio
| Pos | Platform | North America | Europe | Japan | Rest of World | Global |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | PlayStation 2 (PS2) | 53.65 | 55.28 | 23.18 | 26.59 | 158.70 |
| 2 | Nintendo DS (DS) | 57.92 | 51.84 | 32.99 | 11.28 | 154.02 |
| 3 | Nintendo Switch (NS) | 49.63 | 35.90 | 32.87 | 21.46 | 139.86 |
| 4 | Game Boy (GB) | 43.18 | 40.05 | 32.47 | 2.99 | 118.69 |
| 5 | PlayStation 4 (PS4) | 38.11 | 45.85 | 9.68 | 23.53 | 117.17 |
| 6 | PlayStation (PS) | 40.78 | 31.09 | 21.59 | 9.04 | 102.49 |
| 7 | Nintendo Wii (Wii) | 45.51 | 33.12 | 12.77 | 10.23 | 101.63 |
| 8 | PlayStation 3 (PS3) | 29.80 | 30.87 | 10.47 | 16.27 | 87.40 |
| 9 | Xbox 360 (X360) | 46.14 | 25.08 | 1.66 | 12.85 | 85.73 |
| 10 | PlayStation Portable (PSP) | 21.62 | 25.31 | 20.02 | 15.57 | 82.52 |
| 11 | Game Boy Advance (GBA) | 40.39 | 21.31 | 16.96 | 2.85 | 81.51 |
| 12 | Nintendo 3DS (3DS) | 25.47 | 20.45 | 24.67 | 5.35 | 75.94 |
| 13 | Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) | 33.49 | 8.30 | 19.35 | 0.77 | 61.91 |
| 14 | PlayStation 5 (PS5) | 22.34 | 19.04 | 5.58 | 11.06 | 58.01 |
| 15 | Xbox One (XOne) | 32.97 | 14.86 | 0.12 | 10.02 | 57.96 |
| 16 | Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) | 22.88 | 8.15 | 17.17 | 0.90 | 49.10 |
| 17 | Sega Genesis (GEN) | 18.50 | 8.39 | 3.58 | 3.59 | 34.06 |
| 18 | Nintendo 64 (N64) | 20.11 | 6.35 | 5.54 | 0.93 | 32.93 |
| 19 | Atari 2600 (2600) | 23.54 | 3.35 | 2.36 | 0.75 | 30.00 |
| 20 | Xbox Series X/S (XS) | 15.80 | 7.65 | 0.59 | 4.48 | 28.51 |
| 21 | Xbox (XB) | 15.77 | 7.17 | 0.47 | 1.24 | 24.65 |
| 22 | GameCube (GC) | 12.55 | 4.44 | 4.04 | 0.71 | 21.74 |
| 23 | Sega Master System (MS) | 2.00 | 6.95 | 2.52 | 9.37 | 20.84 |
| 24 | PlayStation Vita (PSV) | 2.70 | 3.94 | 5.73 | 3.44 | 15.82 |
| 25 | Nintendo Wii U (WiiU) | 6.15 | 3.27 | 3.33 | 0.82 | 13.56 |
| 26 | GameGear (GG) | 5.40 | 3.23 | 1.78 | 0.21 | 10.62 |
| 27 | TurboGrafx-16 (TG16) | 0.75 | N/A | 7.76 | N/A | 10.00 |
| 28 | Sega Saturn (SAT) | 1.83 | 1.10 | 5.80 | 0.53 | 9.26 |
| 29 | Dreamcast (DC) | 3.90 | 1.91 | 2.25 | 1.07 | 9.13 |
| 30 | Intellivision (Int) | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 5.00 |
Note: For Nintendo Switch these are sell-through estimates. Official Shipments as of 31st March 2024 were Americas 54.52m (includes South America), Europe 36.48m, Japan 34.00m and Other 16.31m.
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