Analyst: Nintendo Switch 2 to Sell Over 20 Million Units in 1st Year - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 16 January 2025 / 3,284 Views
Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Robin Zhu has told Bloomberg that Nintendo is ready to have a record breaking first year for the Nintendo Switch 2.
Zhu states that Nintendo has a supply chain network that will allow them to sell over 20 million units of the Nintendo Switch 2 in its first year.
This figure would be above the 14.86 million units the original Switch shipped by December 31, 2017.
Nintendo today officially announced the Nintendo Switch 2, while the Nintendo Direct: Nintendo Switch 2 will take place on Wednesday, April 2.
The Nintendo Switch 2 will play exclusive games, as well as physical and digital Nintendo Switch games. However, some Nintendo Switch games may not be supported or fully compatible with the Nintendo Switch 2. Nintendo will share more details at a later date.
The Nintendo Switch 2 will launch in 2025.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I hope that works out for Nintendo!
I mean, it all depends on the price and the units available, cause the hype is real.
reveal trailer already sits at 10.9mil views & growing. This is nearly double the views Zelda TotK was getting back in 2023, and that game sold through 10mil w/in a single wknd. Noting the obvious price difference btwn a single game and a new system, I’m estimating 5-7mil launch (given <$550 cost), and 18-21mil sold by December 31st, 2025.
Now, 20h, 5.2 million views and 200K likes on the Japanese channel; nearly 15m views, 925K likes on the US mirror. 1.1m views and 29K likes on UK; Germany 500K views and another 29K likes, France almost mirroring that. We’re looking at 22 million+ and 1.2m likes between those countries alone.
The US mirror is the highest trending video on YouTube right now.
Now THAT would be quite the comeback after the Wii to Wii U! lol
This trailer is reminding me of the PS5 trailer... Anyone else?
Imagine they would have produced 20 million Wii U consoles because of the expected demand...
We would've gotten cheap Wii U consoles or Nintendo would recycle millions of them.
Is this a feasible number?
It's dependent on stock, price, and games.
20 million seems a little high with the little we currently know. I do expect it to outsell Wii U's lifetime totals in its first year.
Switch sold that much by December 31, but it’s first year runs a couple of months longer than that.
If true then there shouldn't be the massive shortages that plagued both the Switch and the Wii during their first couple years.
Now they just gotta make sure they price it under $400 and have 3D Mario ready at launch and a few more major and exiting AAA games throughout the rest of the year that will make people want to upgrade early on.
The certainly have the hype and momentum to do it. It's just a matter of having the stock AND the right price.
20 million could be a bit high, but for a handheld on Par with PS4 it could do~ 16
Switch 2 has DLSS though. It can make a 1080p image from 480p or a 4k from 1080p
Still not as good as a native 1080P or 4k image though due to inherent artifacts.
It looks good enough though. Most people won't notice cos DLSS 2 is that good.
I'll notice, I always prefer native output.
The shimmer, pixel crawl, sub-pixel breakups, halo-ing of certain texture patterns and more is something I pick up on pretty quickly.
Especially if it's a lower-end device which doesn't have a lot of data to play with to competently upscale assets.
The other issue is developers are using upscalers as a crux to get acceptable performance, aka. Cost cutting.
what abt 20mil?
There's a looong road between 20 and 400 million. If the Switch 2 really beats our expectations i hear lying Ryans steps "finding' some 10s of million PS2s more in his toilet!🤣😂
Bloomberg did not clarify what they meant by "first year" so it is hard to say how big of an improvement over the first Switch launch this is.
1) First calendar year would be from a rumored May 2025 release to December 2025. That would be LOT.
2) First Fiscal Year (most likely) would be from rumored May 2025 launch to March 2026. Still a good amount.
3) First actual year in market from release would be from rumored May 2025 launch to May 2026. This would be pretty comparable to Switch 1 release (March 2017 to March 2018).
First year...
12 full months on the market
Okay, so VG Chartz is confused then by their comparison above where they mention Switch sold through 14.86 million by December 31, 2017. That would be in its calendar year. If you go through its first full year - March 31, 2018 - it sold through to end users 17.79 million with 20 million being shipped. So - the exact same as rumored for Switch 2 lol
For $449 - $499 it won't.
$399 bud
399$ would mean it only costs 50 more than a switch OLED. If they did that it means they'd have to discontinue the OLED cos Switch 2 would nuke it out of existence
Successor consoles have a habit of doing that in almost all cases.
I'm not getting the impression Nintendo want to discontinue the OG switch anytime soon
Maybe not, but if Switch1 is outselling the Switch2 at any point there Nintendo has done something wrong.
Not really. They promised a 10 years lifecycle. All their handhelds had 10 years. Why not the Switch?
Yes it's fully expected nobody is going to be buying the OLED once Switch 2 hits the market. Pretty much same deal for the original Switch as well at $300. Only the Lite is gonna be selling once Switch 2 launches. I think this is well understood, shouldn't be a shock. Switch sales are gonna plummet very hard and very quickly the moment Switch 2 launches. Budget shoppers and kids might still be picking up the Lite in fairly small numbers for a couple years, but that's about it.
It depends on the price of the switch 2 though. 450 - 500 is not out of the question and if that happens the OG switch for 300$ might still have a place on the market. Let's not just assume it's all over for OG switch
I hope you are right; however, Nvidia will not do Nintendo any favours.
I think that's a bit too optimistic
We'll have to see what games it brings to the table first
Time to butter up square enix to get them to show kingdom hearts 4's first gameplay trailer at their event
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