100 million is certainly possible if financial systems are stable but with current tariff and trade war situation we cannot really count on stability.
At least in Japan things are looking very positive for the Switch 2 with
Mario Kart World being the perfect game to drive demand launch year, combined with cross-gen
Pokémon Legends: Z-A and a bunch of other titles that are likely going to hit over
0.5 million.
Japan
Switch (2017-2021)
- sold-through around ~23 million units
- launch CY sell through >3.2 million units(three additional months compared to Switch 2)
- launch month sell through >0.5 million units
- shortages & lottery to purchase Switch until 2019
- peak year 2020 sell through >5.9 million units(New Horizon + COVID)
- Three multi-million selling third party titles Minecraft(2017), Momotaro Dentetsu(2020), Monster Hunter Rise(2021)
- revisions Lite(2019) & OLED(2021)
Switch 2 (2025-2029)
My expectations
- sold-through around ~27 million units
- launch CY sell through >4.5 million units
- launch month sell through ~1.5 million units
- due to region lock and Nintendo stockpiling more units for the launch and having a larger and more mature supply chain I don't foresee any big shortages launch year
- peak year 2027 sell through >6.5 million units
- At least five multi-million selling third party titles
- Similar revisions time-frame - cheaper Lite model in 2027 which leads to the peak year in combination with mass appeal game(prob new Animal Crossing), more expensive OLED in 2029
I think final sell-through in Japan will be only slighter higher than Switch in the same time-frame(minus three months). Mainly because much fewer units will be exported to other markets due to region lock. At least 5 million Switch units ended up exported to China and other markets due to favorable currency conditions(weak yen). This will not happen with the Switch 2 and vast majority of units will end up in the hands of Japanese consumers so although sell-through is similar the actual amount of units in Japan will be much greater.
Launch year will be much greater with launch month sell-through of around
1.5 million, I expect that it will break the launch week record PS2 holds(
600K+) with over
700K units sold through to retailers and an additional over
300K sold via the MyNintendo Store. Switch did have huge shortages at launch as there were question marks if after the Wii U Nintendo could turn things around and it took a long time for stock situation to normalize. There were lotteries for years and that was topped off with Nintendo having trouble to scale up production.
By the end of the year I think sell-through across retail and MyNintendo Store will be over
4.5 million with an additional
0.5 million units shipped but not sold for January.
Peak Year for the Switch 2 will be earlier due to lack of Global Event like COVID, so I'm thinking 2027 is actually the peak due to
Switch 2 Lite launch in combination with a new
Animal Crossing game and a new mainline Pokemon title exclusive to the system.
Now the main difference I foresee is the difference in Japanese third party support compared to the Switch (2017-2021) period,
- It took a long time for Japanese AAA third party games to arrive on the Switch, and even when they did it was a handful or late/half arsed ports
- AA also took sometime to adapt to the new reality due to a lot of them being aligned to PS ecosystem in the prior gen
- In Japan there were very few indie publishers at the start of the Switch life so that niche was largely filled by Western Indies who had a string of huge hits on the system - Stardew, Human Fall Flat, Overcooked 1&2 are three Western Indies that have surpassed 2 million units in Japan on the Switch
Nintendo & PC pretty much eliminated PS from Japan, Sony are getting fewer and fewer Japanese console exclusives. Right now we can still count on
Capcom &
Bandai's AAA efforts but for the rest the writing is on the wall as they all changed strategy in the past two years and Switch 2 will be central part of it.
Square, Sega, Koei Tecmo &
Kadokawa are all publishers I expect to have Switch 2 in their pipeline for their next major unannounced titles.
Pretty much all Japanese AA and indie publishers there are targeting Switch 2 as the lead platform - this wasn't the case when the Switch launched when PS4 was still selling decent amount of software in the country and many smaller publishers were aligned with PS for years and in some cases decades. However when PS killed the Vita and their local gaming branch they killed off a lot of the relationships with smaller publishers and Nintendo stepped in with the Switch. Right now if you are a smaller publisher with limited resources Switch 2 is likely the first time we see majority of new AA titles be console exclusives because with the amount of sales games achieve on the PS5 in Japan it just doesn't make financial sense to target the platform at launch.
Japanese indies are also finding their feet Aladin (Suika Game) Edelweiss (Sakuna), Hakababunko (Urban Myth Dissolution Center), Kotake Create (Exit 8), Too Kyo Games (Hundred Line) are just a few Japanese indies that have had major success on the Switch in recent years and as AAA becomes more and more risky and risk averse - a lot of experienced developers in Japan might be pushed towards making their own studios with lower budget/# of employees etc where they can take more risks while targeting Switch and PC as lead platforms.
I expect most of the growth for the Switch to come via "
Other" region now, due to the region locking of Japan - places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand etc will be critical as the units sold there are likely to end up being exported into China's gray market which is unlikely to get an official launch of the Switch 2 anytime soon. Switch sold around
12 million units in "
Other" region by the end of 2021 I expect that by the end of 2029 Switch 2 to be around
20 million in "
Other" region with South East Asia making up 2/3 of sales.
Europe also has space for growth as does the US main thing is getting sports games with parity and some of the major Western AAA games like CoD but again especially in the US a lot depends on the economic situation and trade wars - if Switch 2 is hit with a price hike due to tariffs we are more likely to see a decline there