In a recent investor Q&A, Nintendo boss Tatsumi Kimishima talked about how the Switch is selling, and if it can match the Wii.
Kimishima stated that he isn’t looking for the Switch to match the Wii, in terms of sales. He said that he will be happy if the console can “adapt and respond to changes in the market.”
Kimishima said:
“The benchmark is not whether Nintendo Switch sales can surpass total Wii sales, but rather we adapt and respond to changes in the market and strive to continue selling Nintendo Switch as long as possible.”
It is a high benchmark: the Wii sold 101 million units worldwide, dominating the PS3 and Xbox 360 (about 80 million units sold, each). It would be ambitious to expect the Switch to match that.
Looking at the landscape at the moment, the PS4 has shipped approximately 79 million units. Microsoft doesn’t disclose hardware sales, but the Xbox One is believed to be lower than the PS4.
The Switch has sold 17.79 million so far, and the company forecast 20 million more units will be sold during this fiscal year.
The Switch life cycle will be longer than the standard 5-6 years, so this could well help its projections.
