Topic: Nintendo Switch 2

@FishyS
Wario Land VB is classic. THE reason to go VB. Teleroboxer, Jack Bros and Mario Clash are pretty neat too. Still need to try out Mansion of Inssmouth and Space Squash whenever it eventually makes its way on to NSO VB.

Well, to be fair, there are a lot of games in just the categories of Nintendo 1st party, indie darlings, and well-recognized multiplats. You can be plenty comfortable going outside your comfort zone---trying genres and series you're not quite familiar with---and still easily be relatively confined to those three groups. Not everyone has the time or money to play all the great games available to play (sometimes I even get overwhelmed by thinking of the long list of games I still need to get to, and I barely even touch AAA multi-plats). You just can't expect everyone to be able to play everything, regardless of how good you think a niche IP is.

@UpsideDownRowlet
I don't expect everyone to play everything. Otherwise every single game would have 100m sales.

But there are clear trends that can be observed from objective sales data. Across all platforms. But since we're on a Nintendo site I'm referring to the trends seen among Nintendo consumers more broadly.

I think there's a pretty big difference between noting certain very highly acclaimed games struggling to break 1-2m sold, even among 1st party, and saying I think every single gamer should be buying every single game.

So Mochizuki is back on Bloomberg, Nintendo's favourite hit piece writer at this point.he claims Nintendo will produce 2m less Switch 2 systems this quarter due to slowing US demand. Down from 6m to 4m.

1: The quarter is over.
2: This assumes they intended to sell 23m units in 9 months which is...insane.
3: He states Nintendo is usually conservative with forecasts and haven't revised their targets upwards after Q3, which means sales must be slow. This ignores Nintendo has raised their forecasts 4 times after Q3 and lowered them 4 times after Q3, all since the Switch launched, and this was always to hit their target.

If they weren't going to hit it, they would have done it.

Then again, this guy has categorically been proven wrong on numerous points about this stuff, and given he works (somehow) for Bloomberg, his word is gospel to already fickle investors.

Wouldn't be shocked if we see the Nintendo IR account come out and refute it, like they've had to before, several times per story in fact.

I think we can take some of this slightly salted but we've had other reports of slow sales so there's likely something to it.

Software isn't driving hardware, for myriad reasons. A Nintendo Direct feels almost essential right now to get away from the narrative that Switch 2 doesn't have compelling reasons for ownership.

@Rahmus The reports of slow sales are interesting.

On one hand, didn't do well on Black Friday relative to PS5, but sold consistently well in line with other weeks around it. It's ahead of Switch like for like in the same time, and is on track to be the fastest selling system year 1.

People are conflating "this quarter" with "overall". It happened on Black Friday, people cried doom, then it topped the charts. Same thing here.

@Haruki_NLI Obviously the overall fiscal year will be selling more than their original 17 million target and even more than their updated 19 million target. It would be interesting to see that broken down by tegion. Did NA have fewer sales overall than the original target for that region or merely less than predicted that one quarter?

I feel like in the US at least there were some early sales which were partially because of fear of tariffs increasing prices. So those would have translated directly into those same people not buying them during the holidays when they 'usually' would have.

@Haruki_NLI it seems to me like the analysts have their eye out for sales info like hawks, and some like to latch onto any bit of information outside of the narrative that Switch 2 is selling well, either for personal reasons, or to spark engagement.

Just look at that comment about European sales being below expectations for the holiday period. People like to amplify that little detail while ignoring the bigger picture.