PR: Switch surpasses Wii in best-selling Nintendo console in US on BF+CM. +115% HW over 2017

[Liabe Brave]

It seems really disingenuous to compare Wii to Switch sales over a 20 month period when that means the Wii would've had two holidays.

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And the Switch had a launch period separate from a holiday, making typically low months much higher. The mismatch of launch timing will perpetually mess with this comparison. Switch can more commensurately be aligned against Vita, 3DS, PSP, and GBA (though even that's not perfect).

Of course, but this article is using the numbers they currently have access to. After March the comparison becomes a lot more fair....

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Not more fair, just different. As explained above, Switch has an incommensurate advantage for "two holidays" comparisons, because in those it actually has two holidays plus a launch period.

Not very useful in an extremely seasonal market. Not all months are the same.

12/24 months is better.

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The point was to identify where Switch fell, and it hasn't gotten to 24 months yet. I unfortunately don't have granular data for all the platforms Ars listed, but here's a quick comparison at 12 months for the ones I do.

Again, as I said earlier this isn't a "more realistic" comparison, just a different one.

EDIT: Fixed slight undercount on PS2.

 

[Skittzo]

Not more fair, just different. As explained above, Switch has an incommensurate advantage for "two holidays" comparisons, because in those it actually has two holidays plus a launch period.

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After 24 months the Switch has a launch period and two holidays, while Fall consoles will have a holiday launch period and ~1.5 holidays. It is of course impossible to get a completely fair comparison but I think that might be the closest. If we go to 25 months the Switch will still have a launch period and two holidays while the others have a holiday launch period plus two full holidays.

The reason a holiday launch period is going to be larger than a non-holiday launch period is the platform holder will need to stockpile relatively more units in a Spring launch because the holidays are only ~8 months away while a holiday launch requires no stockpiling, as the next holidays are 12 months away. Even though launch periods will cause sellouts for both, a holiday launch will generally have higher stock because of this.

At least that's my take.

 

[Liabe Brave]

The reason a holiday launch period is going to be larger than a non-holiday launch period is the platform holder will need to stockpile relatively more units in a Spring launch because the holidays are only ~8 months away while a holiday launch requires no stockpiling, as the next holidays are 12 months away. Even though launch periods will cause sellouts for both, a holiday launch will generally have higher stock because of this.

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Non-holiday launches are generally smaller than holiday launches, yes. But for LTD purposes that's not the comparison that's important. What's germane is that non-holiday launches are typically bigger than those same calendar months without a launch. Whereas launch holidays are almost always smaller than non-launch holidays. That is, by launching in a holiday you're hobbling your sales potential. (The only consoles for which this hasn't been entirely true were Xbox One and PS4.)

Switch's launch plus two holidays is thus much more akin to three full holidays for other, holiday-launched consoles. Not "launch plus 1.5 holidays" as you suggest. But that's still not exact. If you want the closest match, it can only be compared to other portables: GBA, PSP, 3DS, and Vita.

 

[Skittzo]

Non-holiday launches are generally smaller than holiday launches, yes. But for LTD purposes that's not the comparison that's important. What's germane is that non-holiday launches are typically bigger than those same calendar months without a launch. Whereas launch holidays are almost always smaller than non-launch holidays. That is, by launching in a holiday you're hobbling your sales potential. (The only consoles for which this hasn't been entirely true were Xbox One and PS4.)

Switch's launch plus two holidays is thus much more akin to three full holidays for other, holiday-launched consoles. Not "launch plus 1.5 holidays" as you suggest. But that's still not exact. If you want the closest match, it can only be compared to other portables: GBA, PSP, 3DS, and Vita.

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Yeah I just did some napkin analysis and here's what I came up with-

Switch: 1 non-holiday launch (< holiday launch) + 2 full holidays
Fall consoles: 1 holiday launch (>non-holiday launch) + 1 full holiday + 1 November (~0.5 holiday)

To make it easier to understand maybe we should assign (fairly arbitrary) values to these things. I'll say a full holiday = 1, holiday launch = 0.75, non-holiday launch = 0.5. If we go with this, after 24 months we get:

Switch: 0.5 + 2 = 2.5
Fall consoles: 0.75 + 1.5 = 2.25

While after 20 months we get:

Switch: 0.5 + 1 = 1.5
Fall consoles: 0.75 + 1 = 1.75

So either way they're basically off by the same amount. 20 months favors Fall consoles, 24 months favors Spring consoles. I think we won't really be able to get a very accurate comparison until maybe 3-4 years after each launch, since by then the offset launch dates will have contributed a lot less to the LTD.

 

[Corporate Clown]

There's never going to be a definitive comparison point so we'll just need to continue to analyze both points every year and just deal with it. *shrugs*

 

[Celine]

I agree that he Wii U was trying to be so many things at once. But most posters aren't even touching the vision of the Wara Wara Plaza, Video Calling, and MiiVerse which I think were each central to the design of the system.

Nintendo really wanted the Gamepad to be a window into its own social network as well as a complimentary screen to what is happening on your HDTV.

In other words, the system is designed around social networking (that's why it's called "Wii U" - ie "We and You"). That's also why nearly every first party game featured MiiVerse integration - it was a core component of the system's design.

The problem with this is that the whole "We You" social networking concept is that falls apart without a huge install base. I doubt that the vision of Wara Wara Plaza, MiiVerse and video calling that we got was anything but a first draft at how connected they wanted the system to be. They actually had a very cool vision for how to connect gamers to each other, but nobody cared, and that's why the Switch has none of those things - not even a messaging system. The Wii U taught them that those social features don't lead to sales and now that they achieved success in the form of the Switch, I guess it's true.

I wish they went all in with the "connectivity" aspect because it's where the Wii U genuinely felt like a unique console, the likes of which that we may never see again.

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Good post.
The strategy and selling points behind the WiiU and Switch are totally different.

 

[fiendcode]

If you want to mitigate the impact of holiday vs non-holiday launches, what does it look like if you take out PS4's first December and Switch's first April?

 

[Zedark]

If you want to mitigate the impact of holiday vs non-holiday launches, what does it look like if you take out PS4's first December and Switch's first April?

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That's the thing: no one knows, because we don't have monthly numbers, but only quarterly.

 

[Skittzo]

If you want to mitigate the impact of holiday vs non-holiday launches, what does it look like if you take out PS4's first December and Switch's first April?

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Do you mean March and November? Or March + April and November + December?

That's the thing: no one knows, because we don't have monthly numbers, but only quarterly.

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We should have shipment numbers for Switch's March and at least PS4's November + December.

 

[Boiled Goose]

I agree that he Wii U was trying to be so many things at once. But most posters aren't even touching the vision of the Wara Wara Plaza, Video Calling, and MiiVerse which I think were each central to the design of the system.

Nintendo really wanted the Gamepad to be a window into its own social network as well as a complimentary screen to what is happening on your HDTV.

In other words, the system is designed around social networking (that's why it's called "Wii U" - ie "We and You"). That's also why nearly every first party game featured MiiVerse integration - it was a core component of the system's design.

The problem with this is that the whole "We You" social networking concept is that falls apart without a huge install base. I doubt that the vision of Wara Wara Plaza, MiiVerse and video calling that we got was anything but a first draft at how connected they wanted the system to be. They actually had a very cool vision for how to connect gamers to each other, but nobody cared, and that's why the Switch has none of those things - not even a messaging system. The Wii U taught them that those social features don't lead to sales and now that they achieved success in the form of the Switch, I guess it's true.

I wish they went all in with the "connectivity" aspect because it's where the Wii U genuinely felt like a unique console, the likes of which that we may never see again.

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Miiverse was a very interesting concept, but it was horribly implemented mainly due to the sluggish wiiu ui.

 

[Smash Kirby]

Miiverse was a very interesting concept, but it was horribly implemented mainly due to the sluggish wiiu ui.

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It was fast on the web and fast on the 3DS.

 

[Dekuman]

It was fast on the web and fast on the 3DS.

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It was only really fast on the web. In terms of sluggishness the biggest issue is implementation of Miiverse on Wii U, if you want to post something, it literally takes you out of the game , loads up miiverse for like a minute, you make your post and then go back to your game. Some 1st party titles had a smaller miiverse applet pre-loaded which makes the whole process a little easier, but those were in the minority and the applets had very limited functionality was mostly for posting doodles, using in-game stamps and for text comments. Posting /sharing screenshots felt like a chore and I stopped using it after the initial newness wore off.

For a platform with 1GB reserves for the OS, it's baffling miiverse isn't perma loaded in the background so it can be called up at any time.

 

[Liabe Brave]

To make it easier to understand maybe we should assign (fairly arbitrary) values to these things. I'll say a full holiday = 1, holiday launch = 0.75, non-holiday launch = 0.5.

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Using historical data as a rough guide, we can (slightly) less arbitrarily say if a full holiday=1, then holiday launch=.6 and non-holiday launch=.45. Launches are more similar to each other than either is to a "real" holiday.

Ultimately your point about comparisons being more reliable over time is true--for example, Switch is currently ahead of DS and PS2, but that's guaranteed to change. But rather than try to adjust for that, or wait for years before we can say anything, we can just look at other portables for comparisons. Almost all of them launched outside the holidays too, the only notable exceptions being Game Boy Color and the DS.

That comparison show us that Switch is doing much, much better than Vita, a little better than 3DS and PSP, and much, much worse than GBA.

 

[Smash Kirby]

It was only really fast on the web. In terms of sluggishness the biggest issue is implementation of Miiverse on Wii U, if you want to post something, it literally takes you out of the game , loads up miiverse for like a minute, you make your post and then go back to your game. Some 1st party titles had a smaller miiverse applet pre-loaded which makes the whole process a little easier, but those were in the minority and the applets had very limited functionality was mostly for posting doodles, using in-game stamps and for text comments. Posting /sharing screenshots felt like a chore and I stopped using it after the initial newness wore off.

For a platform with 1GB reserves for the OS, it's baffling miiverse isn't perma loaded in the background so it can be called up at any time.

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They really didn't optimize the OS, I'm curious to see if hackers can streamline it at all.

 

[Boiled Goose]

It was fast on the web and fast on the 3DS.

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Definitely not fast on 3ds compared to what you would expect from a social media app.

 

[Smash Kirby]

Definitely not fast on 3ds compared to what you would expect from a social media app.

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Then again I was using the New 3DS so that might have made a difference.

 

[Boiled Goose]

Then again I was using the New 3DS so that might have made a difference.

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So was I...

 

[Liabe Brave]

If you want to mitigate the impact of holiday vs non-holiday launches, what does it look like if you take out PS4's first December and Switch's first April?

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We should have shipment numbers for Switch's March and at least PS4's November + December.

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As skittzo0413 says, we can't get Switch shipments without April, or PS4 without December. But we can get Switch from 1 Apr 2017 to 20 Sep 2018, versus PS4 from 1 Jan 2014 to 30 Jun 2015. In this comparison both have 18 months of sales, with a single holiday, but no launch (chopping off the initial 4 weeks of sales for Switch, and initial 6 weeks for PS4).

PS4 - 20.60m shipped
SWI - 20.12m shipped

 

[Smash Kirby]

So was I...

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I thought of it being faster than the WiiU app. Man I think Miiverse on the Switch would've been killer.

 

[Boiled Goose]

I thought of it being faster than the WiiU app. Man I think Miiverse on the Switch would've been killer.

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I think Nintendo's idea with social media integration is the right one.

Why build miiverse from scratch when you can use the Twitter or Facebook existing infrastructure and get free publicity along the way?

This of course could be done better than now, but it's a much better idea.

 

[LegendofLex]

As skittzo0413 says, we can't get Switch shipments without April, or PS4 without December. But we can get Switch from 1 Apr 2017 to 20 Sep 2018, versus PS4 from 1 Jan 2014 to 30 Jun 2015. In this comparison both have 18 months of sales, with a single holiday, but no launch (chopping off the initial 4 weeks of sales for Switch, and initial 6 weeks for PS4).

PS4 - 20.60m shipped
SWI - 20.12m shipped

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This is probably the best strategy I've seen for doing an aligned sales comparison that isn't skewed by launch timing.

It's probably still a bit flawed, to the extent that both systems were supply constrained in this comparison, but to different degrees in different regions and over different lengths of time... but there's not much anyone can do about that.

 

[Skittzo]

Using historical data as a rough guide, we can (slightly) less arbitrarily say if a full holiday=1, then holiday launch=.6 and non-holiday launch=.45. Launches are more similar to each other than either is to a "real" holiday.

Ultimately your point about comparisons being more reliable over time is true--for example, Switch is currently ahead of DS and PS2, but that's guaranteed to change. But rather than try to adjust for that, or wait for years before we can say anything, we can just look at other portables for comparisons. Almost all of them launched outside the holidays too, the only notable exceptions being Game Boy Color and the DS.

That comparison show us that Switch is doing much, much better than Vita, a little better than 3DS and PSP, and much, much worse than GBA.

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True that it's a lot easier to compare to Spring launches but that doesn't really help us when people ask how it compares to something like the Wii or PS4. But yeah, thanks for the less arbitrary numbers, that makes more sense.

As skittzo0413 says, we can't get Switch shipments without April, or PS4 without December. But we can get Switch from 1 Apr 2017 to 20 Sep 2018, versus PS4 from 1 Jan 2014 to 30 Jun 2015. In this comparison both have 18 months of sales, with a single holiday, but no launch (chopping off the initial 4 weeks of sales for Switch, and initial 6 weeks for PS4).

PS4 - 20.60m shipped
SWI - 20.12m shipped

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Yeah this seems like the best way we can compare them, even if it's still not perfect (nothing will be). I'm curious how the Wii compares too.

 

[Lwill]

Anyway here is a much better article than that Bloomberg one weighing analysts' concerns and Nintendo's holiday success:

https://www.businessinsider.com/nin...pectations-despite-black-friday-boost-2018-11

It actually mentions Smash and Pokemon, unlike the other one.

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It's definitely much better than the other one, but the concerns are still a bit weakened when you realized how easy it will be for the Switch to catch up to those Wii numbers launch aligned within the next few weeks.

 

[Liabe Brave]

This is probably the best strategy I've seen for doing an aligned sales comparison that isn't skewed by launch timing.

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I'm not sure how you can justify that conclusion. What external constraints does this more properly match than other comparisons? Just that it makes the two platforms close, and in your gut you feel like they should be close? But it can be argued that a "true" comparison should show PS4 further above Switch, since they're probably going to end their lives with Sony's machine much more than 3% higher. Or, it could be argued that Switch should be on top since as you said it suffered longer shortages than PS4 after launch.

Best just to be clear what's being compared, and not declare any particular comparison "best". Fundamentally, game consoles are not fungible commodities, so they shouldn't be analyzed as such.

I'm curious how the Wii compares too.

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Period from 1 Jan 2007 to 30 Jun 2008 (18 months, one holiday; dropping initial 6 weeks in North America, 4 weeks in Japan, 3 weeks elsewhere)

Wii - 26.43m shipped

It's definitely much better than the other one, but the concerns are still a bit weakened when you realized how easy it will be for the Switch to catch up to those Wii numbers launch aligned within the next few weeks.

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...And then fall behind again several months from now. Launch-aligned can be a misleading comparison for seasonal products that didn't launch in a similar calendrical frame.

 

[LegendofLex]

I'm not sure how you can justify that conclusion. What external constraints does this more properly match than other comparisons? Just that it makes the two platforms close, and in your gut you feel like they should be close? But it can be argued that a "true" comparison should show PS4 further above Switch, since they're probably going to end their lives with Sony's machine much more than 3% higher. Or, it could be argued that Switch should be on top since as you said it suffered longer shortages than PS4 after launch.

Best just to be clear what's being compared, and not declare any particular comparison "best". Fundamentally, game consoles are not fungible commodities, so they shouldn't be analyzed as such.

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I don't actually care how close the numbers are, as if Switch needs to be close to PS4's sales or vice-versa. I've just observed (as have others) that it's difficult to compare the two's launch-aligned sales due to the different launch timings, and this is the best idea I've seen for a time period you can compare without having to grapple so much with that problem.

I don't think it will work every quarter, but I think it works about as well as any attempt at a "fair" comparison ever could with the most recent quarterly numbers due to where things line up in our current season.

 

[julian]

I think Nintendo's idea with social media integration is the right one.

Why build miiverse from scratch when you can use the Twitter or Facebook existing infrastructure and get free publicity along the way?

This of course could be done better than now, but it's a much better idea.

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It's certainly cheaper and easier to implement, but there's something sadly prophetic about the way Iwata pitched Miiverse. He called it an "empathy network" and wanted players to connect through shared experiences.

 

[Lwill]

I'm not sure how you can justify that conclusion. What external constraints does this more properly match than other comparisons? Just that it makes the two platforms close, and in your gut you feel like they should be close? But it can be argued that a "true" comparison should show PS4 further above Switch, since they're probably going to end their lives with Sony's machine much more than 3% higher. Or, it could be argued that Switch should be on top since as you said it suffered longer shortages than PS4 after launch.

Best just to be clear what's being compared, and not declare any particular comparison "best". Fundamentally, game consoles are not fungible commodities, so they shouldn't be analyzed as such.


Period from 1 Jan 2007 to 30 Jun 2008 (18 months, one holiday; dropping initial 6 weeks in North America, 4 weeks in Japan, 3 weeks elsewhere)

Wii - 26.43m shipped


...And then fall behind again several months from now. Launch-aligned can be a misleading comparison for seasonal products that didn't launch in a similar calendrical frame.

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True. That dance will continue on for awhile. One of the major things to look at in the future is to see if the Switch can maintain its sales throughout an extended period. The Wii eventually faded out after several years, but the PS4, for example, is enduring long enough for it to be projected to pass its lifetime sales. The Switch may also be able to endure, especially if Nintendo properly uses an upgrade model.

 

[Liabe Brave]

I don't actually care how close the numbers are, as if Switch needs to be close to PS4's sales or vice-versa. I've just observed (as have others) that it's difficult to compare the two's launch-aligned sales due to the different launch timings, and this is the best idea I've seen for a time period you can compare without having to grapple so much with that problem.

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I wasn't implying that console affinity would be the only reason you'd like the comparison. That was just an example and my point was more general. You say this is "the best idea", but with what warrant? What makes it "best" or "most fair" or so on? It seems plausible that for increased accuracy we need to grapple with the misaligned launch problem, and by cutting those off we've actually distorted the results.