The Nintendo Switch’s success has caught everyone, including Nintendo themselves, off guard- however, it seems like this success will now continue over time, and deliver to Nintendo their most successful home console yet. At least if market analysis an research firm Nomura Securities is to be believed.
As The Wall Street Journal’s Takashi Mochizuki reported on Twitter, according to Nomura Securities, the Switch will sell a staggering 115.8 million units worldwide by 2023, with 23 million units sold next year alone. If those numbers sound insane to you, that’s because they are- they are beyond what the Wii did, they are beyond what the PS1 did, they are beyond what the PS4 has managed to post so far.
I think these numbers are wildly optimistic, and that analysts are, as they always do, getting ahead of themselves now. They are far too premature to pronounce death or doom upon a product or company- now we are seeing them being far too premature in pronouncing unprecedented success. It doesn’t work that way.
The Switch is a success right now– by all accounts, that is well earned, and it will continue going into the next year. Can Nintendo sustain that success for the next five years, though? That’s what these numbers are predicting. That is what still remains to be seen.