Nintendo has high hopes for their new Switch 2 console, predicting a seemingly tremendous number of sales during its launch window, which if their theory is correct, will make it one of the quickest-selling video game consoles ever released. In their estimation for the next fiscal year, Nintendo has predicted the sale of 15 million consoles and 45 million games, though some analysts view this as a conservative estimate.
If the Switch 2 sells as Nintendo believes that it will, it will exceed the just-under 15 million console sales of the original Switch in its first business year, and it launched much earlier in the year than the Switch 2. Sony’s PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 launch windows were later in their years of release as well, and sold around 7.5 million consoles a piece, with the PS5 suffering stock issues due to the Covid pandemic.
Due to a heightened interest in a more powerful Nintendo console, and following already very strong pre-order numbers, there are many analysts of the gaming industry’s financial side that expect the Switch 2 to far out-perform the console sales of the recent PlayStation systems. These analyses prompted Nintendo President, Shuntaro Furukawa, to warn of console shortages during the launch window, which seems to have only increased pre-orders.
With such high confidence in their product, it would seem that Nintendo’s forecast for their upcoming Switch 2 launch is tad conservative, mostly due to the growing uncertainty surrounding United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs increasing gaming hardware prices, that we covered here.
CEO of Japanese video game consulting company Kantan Games, Dr. Serkan Toto, stated that he wasn’t surprised that Nintendo’s forecasts were lower than many analysts’ considering the current economic climate, elaborating as follows:
“The finance world at least is looking at one number, and one number only, today: hardware sales forecast. When it comes to forecasts, I would not want to be in Nintendo’s shoes now,”
“God knows how the tariff situation will evolve even over the next few days, so how is a company supposed to predict sales for an entire year?”
“If you look at the forecasts made by analysts (including yours truly) the last few weeks, Nintendo’s number is more on the low side. With good reason: Nintendo has always been conservative when it comes to making forecasts, and now literally is the worst time ever to change this approach.”
With Nintendo Switch hardware sales also currently down compared to previous years, and a heavy reliance on big name titles like The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario franchises to generate revenue for the company, it will be interesting to see how Nintendo fairs with the release of their Switch 2 console. Will they exceed their sales forecasts, or do tariffs spell trouble for the immediate future of the industry? Only time will tell.
