Australian consumer electronics retailers including the likes of JB HI Fi and EB Games could have a long-term winner on their hands as opposed to an instant hit, with analysts predicting Nintendo’s new Switch gaming console will sell 40 million between launch and 2020.
DFC Intelligence, believes that the Nintendo Switch will sell 40 million units through to 2020 with the gaming unit getting off to a somewhat slow start due to a relative lack of launch games, they say.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, DFC Intelligence head David Cole said “The Switch is a compelling piece of hardware that could potentially reach a much larger addressable market. However, given the limited software and Nintendo’s poor recent track record of introducing new products we have tempered our forecasts to be conservative.”
Observers claim that 40 million sales over four years would be three times what the Nintendo Wii U sold, and more in line with the 3DS instead.
PS4, the best-selling console this generation, hit 40 million sales in May 2016, which was not quite three years after launch. Microsoft’s struggling Xbox One has never hit that mark, though some firms are estimating the console has sold around 26 million units since its late 2013 launch.
Right now, the system remains sold out, as the Wii U was at launch, so that tells us little.
Will this analysis indeed be conservative, with Nintendo having another monster hit on its hands? Or will it prove to be too high a bar given all the other factors at play?
We will have to wait and see.
