I don’t think Nintendo believes in price cuts. Though, I haven’t checked the data on their previous consoles.

@Nintendianajones64

@picandocodigo @slimerancher I think you’re underselling how important the price cuts were to the PS2’s longevity, and I don’t think Nintendo is willing to go nearly that far. The PS2, like the Nintendo Switch, launched at $299. 2 years later it dropped to $199. Then steady price cuts all the way to $129 preceeding the launch of the PS3 in 2006 at $499/$599. I think it’s safe to say that the enormous price difference played a huge role in it’s ongoing sales past the PS3 launch. PS2 launched in March 2000, and 7 years later it had sold 117 million units, taking us just a few months past the PS3 launch. In the next 5 years the PS2 sales racked up another 40 million units, or about 25% of all PS2’s sold occurred after it’s successor’s launch.

If the Switch were to follow the same trajectory and a Switch 2 launched this holiday season, we’d see another 40+ million units sold over the next 5 years, ending in over 170 million units sold. But there are a number of reasons to doubt this will happen.

#1 there might literally just not be enough chips left to do that- it’s speculated that Nvdia stopped production of the chips and there’s a finite number left, which may fall short of that goal.

#2 Nintendo seems very reluctant to drop prices. The PS2 by this point was less than half of the launch price and only 65% of its cost after the first major price drop. The Switch is 100% of its launch price, and I believe in some regions it even got a price hike.

#3 it seems implausible that the Switch 2 will cost as much as a PS3 did at launch (more expensive than the Series S and PS5 digital, equivalent to Series X and PS5 disc). That means the price delta between the Switch and Switch 2 will necessarily be far narrower than the PS2/PS3, so continued sales after the Switch 2 launch are unlikely to be as robust.

#4 Sony wasn’t trying to pump up the PS2 numbers, selling it nearly until the PS4 came out was a strange phenomenon born of unusual circumstances. I don’t think Nintendo will have any interest in selling the Switch alongside it’s successor except to clear out inventory, for the same reason the Wii U and Switch V1 were both discontinued promptly after their successor’s came out.