The Nintendo Switch has been an unbridled success beyond anyone’s wildest hopes and expectations, having sold 10 million units in 9 months, keeping pace with the PS4 globally, and outperforming the PS2’s first year in Japan- it is definitely a winner.
There have been questions about how Nintendo plans on maintaining this kind of momentum going into 2018- the short answer is, we actually still don’t know. What we do know is that Nintendo seems to have some big plans. On Wednesday, Tatsumi Kimishima, Nintendo’s new President, said in an interview (via ResetEra) that Nintendo hopes to sell 20 million units of the Switch for the next financial year.
That is an astonishing amount- one that the PS4 itself could only manage some years into its life. It is not an impossible amount, but it would need for Nintendo to fire off several major heavy hitters- Smash Bros., Animal Crossing, Pokemon, not to mention smaller properties like Yoshi, Kirby, and Fire Emblem, in the same year.
Can they do it? If 2017 was any indication, yes- but we can’t say for sure unless Nintendo themselves tip their hand for the coming year, and on that front, they have so far been frustratingly tight lipped.