@shinoff2183,

Smash Bros Melee: 7M
Super Mario Sunshine: 6.3M
Winner: Smash Bros

Super Mario Galaxy: 11.4
Super Mario Galaxy 2: 7.6
Super Smash Bros Brawl: 12.9
Winner: Smash Bros

Super Mario 3D World: 5M
Super Smash Bros for Wii U: 5.1
Winner: Smash slightly edges out 3D World despite launching a year later

Pokemon sells far more than Smash Bros and Zelda sells even less than 3D Mario. How in any way am I "way off"? The only time 3D Mario sold more was on Nintendo 64, and that's when Super Mario 64 was pretty much the console's essential game and Smash Bros was just making a name for itself.

@345, the PS2 may have lacked power but it had great 3rd party support unlike switch currently. If this continues switch won't come even close to PS2 or PS4 figures.

"Also, why does every console maker launch their console during the holiday season in western markets if launching in March is more lucrative?"

Simple. Because it allows them to get better pricing and production yields on the hardware that goes into the console specifically the CPU and GPU components for MS and Sony since they tend to use at the time, current-gen hardware in their consoles. AMD and NVIDIA generally have spring/summer announcements for their new hardware which means production is ramped up summer/fall. Back in 2013 AMD’s upcoming GPU lineup was the RX 200 series, which is what the PS4 and XBO are based on (PS4 RX 270 -2 compute units @ 800 Mhz, XBO RX 260 -2 compute units @ 853 MHz). Those graphics cards didn't releases until October 2013 which meant AMD had to produce millions of their brand new GPUs to sell on their own in October, but also to build the APUs for the PS4 and XBO in November. Hence why the mainline consoles release in November, it's the earliest they can get the appropriate hardware they need for their console because they used current-gen mid range GPUs.

Handheld like devices use older hardware, the Tegra X1 had been available since Summer 2015, and the Switch didn't release until March 2017. There was no need to force a holiday launch, because the hardware they used had been available for over a year, and Nintendo has no competition in the handheld market. PS4 and XBO at the time they were direct competitors. So launching as soon as possible mattered to prevent a price war advantage to their competitor. Nintendo has no direct competitor in the handheld market, so again they could launch whenever they wanted.

Now flip that and answer the same question, why has Nintendo launched the 3DS and now the Switch in Q1 instead of the holiday season?

"The reason they don't is because the holiday season provides the biggest boom for large purchases as well as the most amount of games to choose from (increased software sales) in western markets."

There's no denying the holidays inflate sales, BUT NOT AT LAUNCH (outside of software), because again there is a limit to the hardware that can be produced at launch. I'd give you the argument on software, but again at launch even those options are limited, and using that logic, any console/game not coming out during the holiday is simply because they don't want to compete because they might lose sales, which it is and why Sony does it with their exclusives (but you'd argue that as being smart of Nintendo if this was a discussion in another thread, because it would fit your narrative there because how you just stated that makes Nintendo sound bad).

It's the same thing with the Switch, it launched with what could be produce, and then struggled the following month until the tail end, because they couldn't meet a global market need.

HOWEVER, they were able to meet the need for their holiday season just 8 - 9 months later, where they were able to get the full benefits of their first holiday and sell 6m units over those 2 months, on top of the near 3m units the Switch sold at launch.

Consoles that launch in the holiday season DON'T GET THAT BENEFIT UNTIL 365 DAYS LATER when the holiday season rolls around again. Yes it's their second official holiday season, but it's the first holiday season that can truly take advantage of the sales inflation.

Switch sold 2.33m in it's first full month (globally).
Then sold 1.81m Nov. 2017, and 4.55m Dec., so overall 6.36m the same year for it's first holiday season.

XBO sold 2.62m in it's first full month (1 mo NA & EU, no JP not that it mattered), which was it's first holiday.
Then sold 2.46m Nov. 2014, and 2.28m Dec., so overall 4.74m the following holiday.

PS4 sold 2.97m in it's first month (1 mo. NA, 2 weeks EU, no JP), and totaled 4.19m 2 weeks later aka it's first holiday.
Then sold 2.86m Nov 2014, and 3.20 Dec., so overall 6.06m the following holiday.

Again Switch launch 2017 2.33m, first holiday 6.36m.

PS4 and XBO launch 2013 aka first full holiday 4.19m (1 mo. EU, 1 1/2 mo. NA, No JP) and 2.62m (1 mo. NA & EU), then nearly 365 days later their 2014 holidays are 6.06m and 4.74m.

One more time:

Launch: Switch 2.33m, XBO 2.62m, PS4 2.97m
First holiday: Switch 6.36m, XBO launch 2.62, PS4 launch 4.74m
First beneficial Inflated holiday: Switch 6.36m, XBO 4.74m, PS4 6.06m

Should we continue this discussion, or is the point made?

Okay, I'm not going to read all of that. You've posted way too much for me to have a casual conversation about this.

Don't write a novel in the comments and expect people to read it.

@ABizzel1,

You do realize the reason for staggering the launch in different countries is so that more can be shipped to certain countries . . . In this case NA and EU saw the launch first because they benefit the most from a holiday boost. Just because a company staggers a launch doesn't mean they produce less than the company that didn't, lol.

@zeldafan & Theknightofnights

If you can't have an intelligent conversation then, there's no need for you to comment to begin with. You could have casually skipped right pass this, but when there's no rebuttal against sound logic you can't do anything but walk away.

Thanks for interesting comments.
It illustrates that comments are not just about 'winning' an argument by any means similar to politics like some people seem to believe but the discussion can be interesting regardless.

@Abizzel

I'm perfectly capable of having an intelligent conversation, but I'm not invested enough in the conversation to read a novel. Try to be more succinct and we can have a better conversation. Otherwise there will be a lot of people who lose interest.