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Sales Data Nintendo Switch worldwide sales top 129.53 million (3.91M in the last quarter), biggest Q1 ever for Nintendo in revenue and operating profit

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byDoS said:
How the fuck is this company having its biggest Q1 profit in history while in its 7-year cycle console?? How?
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They kept the momentum going. There was never a slow point in the Switch's lifecycle where people could bored and bounce off, they always had something just around the corner that kept people hooked on the system
 
Amazing how one quarter can change your perception on how well the Switch can ultimately sell. C'mooon 164m! Way too high of a goal for any realistic expectation but... hey man! 64! 64! SIXTY FOOOOUR!!!!!
 
Can't help but remember the Wii U in 2016, a super sparse year with a few things like Pokken Tournament and Colour Splash. If this is the last full year before the Switch 2, the comparison is crazy.
 
Arynio said:
As incredible as thesebQ1 numbers are, let's not get carried away. Not every quarter has a TotK + Zelda OLED + Mario movie combo. Switch sales in July across many countries are already back to a baseline lower than that of 2022. I'd expect 2-2.5M Switch shipments in Q2, and perhaps 6-6.5M in Q3. 140M by the end of the year would require a high overperformance, which I'm not sure it's possible even if SMW becomes a massive hit. Keep in mind PS5 and XS (which Starfield will resurrect) will provide higher competition than ever these holidays, and the economy is worsening in Europe and other key markets.

One final note: PS2 final number is at around 158-159M. With Switch 2 supposedly launching next year, and Nintendo's history of quickly killing a platform as soon as possible after the launch of its successor, surpassing PS2 looks again too optimistic.
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Yeah, these numbers are really good no matter how you look at it, but you can't look at the project this kind of upward trajectory for the rest of the year. Switch has got a solid holiday lineup and will do really well during the holidays, but Q2 and Q4 are likely going to be closer to what you'd expect out of a console this late in its life cycle.

Still could end up north of 15m for the fiscal year, but it's definitely not some kind of slam dunk where Nintendo needs to revise its estimate.
 
I think the Switch needs to be at around 150 million units whenever the Switch 2 releases to have "safe" odds of passing PS2. 10 million units overlapping with Switch 2 seems plausible enough, more could be possible but it depends so much on how long Nintendo wants to keep the Switch in production.
 
zumaddy said:
Can't help but remember the Wii U in 2016, a super sparse year with a few things like Pokken Tournament and Colour Splash. If this is the last full year before the Switch 2, the comparison is crazy.
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Well that’s what happens when you support a console vs completely abandoning it long beforehand. Helps that they also don’t have a second device they need to support either.
 
Even if it doesn't I'd still look back on it as the most successful home Video Game Console, the PS2 doubling as a DVD player helped it's numbers immensley, not even mentioning towards the end of its lifecycle you could pick it up for under $100.
 
If Switch 2 has an 8inch screen, it will be more like holding a tablet than a handheld, so a Switch lite or an even smaller Switch in the same size of a vita, will sell alongside it just fine, especially because it will be half the price or less. After this year, I think the drop off will be a lot smaller than expectations, I'm looking more at 12M next fy, which means it will be over 152M by the end of March 2025 with at least 21 months left on the market.
 
Arynio said:
As incredible as thesebQ1 numbers are, let's not get carried away. Not every quarter has a TotK + Zelda OLED + Mario movie combo. Switch sales in July across many countries are already back to a baseline lower than that of 2022. I'd expect 2-2.5M Switch shipments in Q2, and perhaps 6-6.5M in Q3. 140M by the end of the year would require a high overperformance, which I'm not sure it's possible even if SMW becomes a massive hit. Keep in mind PS5 and XS (which Starfield will resurrect) will provide higher competition than ever these holidays, and the economy is worsening in Europe and other key markets.

One final note: PS2 final number is at around 158-159M. With Switch 2 supposedly launching next year, and Nintendo's history of quickly killing a platform as soon as possible after the launch of its successor, surpassing PS2 looks again too optimistic
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I don't think Xbox has ever outsold Switch in the U.S. at least....
 
holy poop, congrats and kudos to Nintendo!

Highest first quarter makes me wonder if they can do the same for Q2, and Q3, then the holiday. They have a lot of games coming. Zelda did exceptionallllyyy well, and Pikmin 4 seems to be doing past what everyone thought it would! Mario Wonder will seriously push the holiday well.

also, this is Q1 sales? but it's August..... and totk wasn't out til May, arent quarters like q1 jan-mar, q2 april-june, q3 july- sept, q4 oct-dec

shouldn't we hear q2 sales? Am I missing something/overlooking something?

can someone explain? I promise I am not dumb, I am just extremely tired
 
Arynio said:
One final note: PS2 final number is at around 158-159M. With Switch 2 supposedly launching next year, and Nintendo's history of quickly killing a platform as soon as possible after the launch of its successor, surpassing PS2 looks again too opoptimistic.
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Depends when they price cut, and for how much. A $99 Switch Lite would sell, regardless of a successor.
 
Hardware sales were actually better than the shipped numbers imply during this quarter. The sell-through of hardware was marginally higher than April to June 2021 (FY22 below) even though the shipped (sell-in) numbers are 540k less (3.91m versus 4.45m), so the only reason shipments are not in the 4.5 million range this quarter must be because of excess stock from overshipping in previous quarters. Nintendo also states that the America's and Europe regions declined in shipments year over year but were up in sell-through.

DC08uZH.jpg
 
Joy-Boy said:
They kept the momentum going. There was never a slow point in the Switch's lifecycle where people could bored and bounce off, they always had something just around the corner that kept people hooked on the system
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The shipped hardware of 3.91 million this quarter was much less than it's 5.67 million Q1 hardware peak but the revenue is close. The Oled dominance plus the weaker yen means every Switch purchased outside of Japan makes Nintendo even more money, so just on hardware alone they could have made more money than in Q1 20/21 despite shipping 1.76M fewer Switches. The Mario movie and slightly higher software shipments (52.20M v 50.43M) makes it an easy win over Q1 20/21.

Q1 23/24 - 3.91M - 2.83M Oled (350$) + 0.64M Standard ($300) + 0.43M Lite ($200) = $1.27B
Q1 20/21 - 5.67M - 3.05M Standard ($300) + 2.62M Lite ($200) = $1.44B

Weak yen in 2023 versus 2020 could mean $1.27B > $1.44B when converted into yen, of course only about 70% would be converted because 30% of Switches this quarter were sold in Japan.
 
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Arynio said:
As incredible as thesebQ1 numbers are, let's not get carried away. Not every quarter has a TotK + Zelda OLED + Mario movie combo. Switch sales in July across many countries are already back to a baseline lower than that of 2022. I'd expect 2-2.5M Switch shipments in Q2, and perhaps 6-6.5M in Q3. 140M by the end of the year would require a high overperformance, which I'm not sure it's possible even if SMW becomes a massive hit. Keep in mind PS5 and XS (which Starfield will resurrect) will provide higher competition than ever these holidays, and the economy is worsening in Europe and other key markets.

One final note: PS2 final number is at around 158-159M. With Switch 2 supposedly launching next year, and Nintendo's history of quickly killing a platform as soon as possible after the launch of its successor, surpassing PS2 looks again too optimistic.
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Eh, I don't think Starfield is gonna be much of a boon for Xbox as it will be for PC.
 
DS Lite vs original model Switch is still a nail-biter. In these "off" quarters its numbers are quite small, but it still sold 3 million at the end of 2022, so another holiday performance of a few million could make the difference.
zFpiN31.png

In most regions software is pretty flat, but I did notice that the catch-all "Other" is an exception to that. This quarter saw 7.15m shipped software, which beats the previous top quarter (6.06m, Jan-Mar 2022) by 18%.
Arynio said:
No, I did not. I guess it's my bad for not providing a source. 159M is the lower (but most likely) threshold, by the way.

Here you can find the detailed analysis. I hope it isn't against the rules to source this board:
www.resetera.com

What was the lifetime sales of the PS2? Not 158m [Update: Between 159.2m and 161.9m]

So I saw this tweet just earlier: I went to take a look at the lifetime sales of the PS2 on Wikipedia. On this page it says 155 million and the citations don't give that number. I went to this page that says 158 million, gives the same citations but it doesn't give that number. I then tried...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com
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I think that stretches credulity a bit. The last official number is 155.0m through March 2012. They announced at the end of 2012 that it was discontinued. That leaves 3 quarters unknown, when its last year of reported quarters were trending down fast at 1.4, 1.2, 0.9, 0.5. They'd have to have really juiced production back up to that 1.4m/quarter level to add 4 million. To reach the high end 161.9m estimate would require 2.3m/quarter during the quiet period, which would be higher than any reported quarter since 2008. Based on the last reported quarters, I'd be much more comfortable guessing 156-157 as its final resting point.
udsw4YQ.png

PhillipPirrup said:
for those who know, why did nintendo's stock drop so much in augest 2021. Shouldn't it be going up if sales are this good
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Stock market is crazy. Sales can be good, and the price can drop because a bunch of stockholders are like "Well it's not as good as I THOUGHT it'd be, I'm out!"
 
PhillipPirrup said:
for those who know, why did nintendo's stock drop so much in augest 2021. Shouldn't it be going up if sales are this good
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Stocks go up and down for a multitude of reasons. People sell either to get out while they still can, or they sell because they're satisfied with what they made and wanna bail out.

Its one of the things that makes late stage capitalism so stupid as its continued growth drives companies than just making good enough profits.
 
NTDOY stock is also OTC so that limits its value growth as far as I understand it since you can't trade options on it
 
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AlwaysOnDeck said:
Go off. Maybe I'm wrong for thinking it's a weird, and pointless, thing to care about. Whatever make you happy, right?
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This is literally a Nintendo focused video game forum, one that features a large amount of sales enthusiast members, largely built off the Switch’s success. If you can’t see why some people are rooting for it to do well or would feel validated by it hitting a noteable milestone, I don’t know what to tell you.
 
WestEgg said:
This is literally a Nintendo focused video game forum, one that features a large amount of sales enthusiast members, largely built off the Switch’s success. If you can’t see why some people are rooting for it to do well or would feel validated by it hitting a noteable milestone, I don’t know what to tell you.
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Hi. I'm a Nintendo fan (even owned, and loved, the Wii U). Nothing you wrote makes me think putting any emotional investment in a hugely-successful being more-or-less successful than another hugely-successful console has any real benefit. "Rooting for" is one thing. "Feeling validated" is another. I remain confused as to what a consumer would gain from this accomplishment.
 
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AlwaysOnDeck said:
Hi. I'm a Nintendo fan (even owned, and loved, the Wii U). Nothing you wrote makes me think putting any emotional investment in a hugely-successful being more-or-less successful than another hugely-successful console. "Rooting for" is one thing. "Feeling validated" is another. I remain confused as to what a consumer would gain from this accomplishment.
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People naturally like to associate themselves with a popular thing. When the MCU became popular, a lot of people became MCU fans and cheered its continued success, because they liked the brand and felt associated with it. This is also true of sports teams, the average fan did not participate in the actual game being played, but will feel accomplished if their team wins. Video game fandom is just another example of ingrained human tribal behavior. Is it entirely rational? No. Is it understandable? Yes.
 
Personally, I'm fine if Switch doesn't outsell PS2. PS2 was an anomally in many ways especially how it sold, but again a lot of that was also due to it's aggressive price drops.

At this point the Switch sold this much WITHOUT price drops is more impressive to me than if they did sell as much as PS2. According to history, this level of continued success doesn't make sense. Even president Furukawa thinks these sales are unprecedented.



kronk-doesnt-make-sense.gif
 
Mer.Saloon said:
Personally, I'm fine if Switch doesn't outsell PS2
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Nintendo is probably fine with it too, since they’re enjoying record profits and mindshare. If the Switch does manage to become the top selling console of all time then it’ll make for a great PR piece but otherwise they’re sitting pretty on those fat stacks of cash.
 
People gain nothing from their favorite sports team winning a championship but you'll see lots of people getting shit faced drunk and party as if they personally won the championship themselves. Makes no sense to me either but people find joy and validation. And yes a sports team is a company as they make money and the people watching are indeed consumers. You'd be hard pressed to find many people who think sports fans are losers or need new hobbies but yet you would find a lot of people who think this way for videogames/gaming hardware.
 
Even as someone who does enjoy seeing Nintendo put up Big Numbers, specifically worrying about beating PS2/DS doesn't seem a big deal. Like, over a period of 15 years I think it would be less of an accomplishment if they had two hardware generations that sold 320m combined (becoming the new #1 and #2) than if they had three hardware generations that sold 360m combined.
 
WestEgg said:
This is literally a Nintendo focused video game forum, one that features a large amount of sales enthusiast members, largely built off the Switch’s success. If you can’t see why some people are rooting for it to do well or would feel validated by it hitting a noteable milestone, I don’t know what to tell you.
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I think it's possible for Nintendo fans on a Nintendo forum to discuss the Switch's impressive sales without becoming a corporate cheer squad. Besides, AlwaysOnDeck's original question was:
AlwaysOnDeck said:
What would you gain from [the Switch overtaking the PS2]?
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and no one has really answered that.
 
Well for starters, Nintendo would be in a weird place... not being doomed and all that.

Jokes aside, even I feel like passing the juggernaut that is PS2 feels like a big achievement for Nintendo where the PS2 is just like some milestone, it could have been the Xbox or the Ouya for all I care, but it seemed out of the realm of possibilities for such a long time but now the goal is actually in sight and that is really exciting!
 
hologram said:
I think it's possible for Nintendo fans on a Nintendo forum to discuss the Switch's impressive sales without becoming a corporate cheer squad. Besides, AlwaysOnDeck's original question was:

and no one has really answered that.
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And I think it's possible to think it would be neat to see the Switch be the best-selling system without it being reduced to being a corporate cheer squad. I figured I did answer his question to my understanding at least:

WestEgg said:
People naturally like to associate themselves with a popular thing. When the MCU became popular, a lot of people became MCU fans and cheered its continued success, because they liked the brand and felt associated with it. This is also true of sports teams, the average fan did not participate in the actual game being played, but will feel accomplished if their team wins. Video game fandom is just another example of ingrained human tribal behavior. Is it entirely rational? No. Is it understandable? Yes.
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Maybe I didn't say it explicitly, but the implication is people simply get satisfaction out of something they like or associate with having demonstrable success. What they get out of it is satisfaction or validation of time spent discussing the subject. I don't know what kind of reward is needed beyond that to justify people's positive feelings towards the Switch's success, or why it should bother other people if others do find that satisfaction.
 
Right now in another thread people are actively rooting for BG3’s concurrent Steam player numbers to continue to grow so that the game has a higher peak than other successful games, and nobody thinks that is weird.

At the end of the day, it’s natural for people to want something they really like to be as successful as possible, and ultimately a popular gauge for “success” is setting sales records. If someone personally really likes the Switch, it seems perfectly understandable if that person wants it to set all time sales records. It’s just human nature.
 
I want it to outsell the PS2 because it was previously thought impossible to outsell the PS2. It’d just be cool to see it actually pulled off!
 
It would be interesting from a historical perspective to see the PS2 go down but I can’t say I’m particularly invested in it

Unlike the SMRPG remake which I need to outsell TOTK
 
WestEgg said:
And I think it's possible to think it would be neat to see the Switch be the best-selling system without it being reduced to being a corporate cheer squad. I figured I did answer his question to my understanding at least:


Maybe I didn't say it explicitly, but the implication is people simply get satisfaction out of something they like or associate with having demonstrable success. What they get out of it is satisfaction or validation of time spent discussing the subject. I don't know what kind of reward is needed beyond that to justify people's positive feelings towards the Switch's success, or why it should bother other people if others do find that satisfaction.
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Sorry, I missed your other post.

I think the comparison to sports kinda nails it on the head, but probably not in the way you intended. Sport has become extremely commercialized and is very much all about money these days, but at its core sports is supposed to purely be about the competition, the winners and losers. Choosing and sticking with a team is tribalism, sure, but at the end of the day celebrating victory is celebrating human achievement, and critically the achievement of the player or team, not the corporation which owns them on any given day.

This isn't the case for consumer products. Console makers don't make consoles to win, they make them to sell a product and turn a profit. There's still tribalism and team mentality in the console space, but it's a bug, not an inherent feature. In fact, it's arguable that the logical endgame of this mentality is console wars, which is often pointed to as a quintessential example of how toxic video game discourse has become. You're not celebrating the designers, or those who manufactured the Switch. You're celebrating Nintendo, the corporation. And it's not really a celebration of human achievement - this is very much a product being made in a capitalist system, and I hope nobody is naive enough to think that the best products or most worthy creators are the ones that usually get rewarded in such a system.

Now, I should point out that I'm not saying no one should be happy about the Switch's success. We enjoy Nintendo video games, and so it's natural to want Nintendo to succeed to a point. If Nintendo doesn't succeed, there's the potential that they don't make another console, or scale down budgets for their games, which is obviously against our interests as people who enjoy those games. But we long ago soared past that point. Nintendo continuing to see record profits isn't going to increase the likelihood of future consoles or games - those are guaranteed at this point - it's just going to pad the pockets of shareholders. And hoping for the milestone of beating a specific other console, a milestone which I doubt Nintendo even really cares about, is nothing more than fanboyism and console warring in my opinion.
 
hologram said:
Sorry, I missed your other post.

I think the comparison to sports kinda nails it on the head, but probably not in the way you intended. Sport has become extremely commercialized and is very much all about money these days, but at its core sports is supposed to purely be about the competition, the winners and losers. Choosing and sticking with a team is tribalism, sure, but at the end of the day celebrating victory is celebrating human achievement, and critically the achievement of the player or team, not the corporation which owns them on any given day.

This isn't the case for consumer products. Console makers don't make consoles to win, they make them to sell a product and turn a profit. There's still tribalism and team mentality in the console space, but it's a bug, not an inherent feature. In fact, it's arguable that the logical endgame of this mentality is console wars, which is often pointed to as a quintessential example of how toxic video game discourse has become. You're not celebrating the designers, or those who manufactured the Switch. You're celebrating Nintendo, the corporation. And it's not really a celebration of human achievement - this is very much a product being made in a capitalist system, and I hope nobody is naive enough to think that the best products or most worthy creators are the ones that usually get rewarded in such a system.

Now, I should point out that I'm not saying no one should be happy about the Switch's success. We enjoy Nintendo video games, and so it's natural to want Nintendo to succeed to a point. If Nintendo doesn't succeed, there's the potential that they don't make another console, or scale down budgets for their games, which is obviously against our interests as people who enjoy those games. But we long ago soared past that point. Nintendo continuing to see record profits isn't going to increase the likelihood of future consoles or games - those are guaranteed at this point - it's just going to pad the pockets of shareholders. And hoping for the milestone of beating a specific other console, a milestone which I doubt Nintendo even really cares about, is nothing more than fanboyism and console warring in my opinion.
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I figured the criticism would be interpreted as an anti-capitalist idea about how we shouldn't be happy for the success of corporations, but really I don't think it goes that deep. People just like it when the things they like do well. To me, the initial criticism just read like a "stop having fun" message for the people beginning to look forward to the potential of the Switch being the best-selling system of all time. It's inherently interesting. This thread was created because the relative success of games and the Switch was interesting. A whole sales forum was founded because comparing sales data is interesting. Console Wars are an example of said interest taken to the extreme, but being critical towards any form of that interest is just silly to me.
 
WestEgg said:
I figured the criticism would be interpreted as an anti-capitalist idea about how we shouldn't be happy for the success of corporations, but really I don't think it goes that deep. People just like it when the things they like do well. To me, the initial criticism just read like a "stop having fun" message for the people beginning to look forward to the potential of the Switch being the best-selling system of all time. It's inherently interesting. This thread was created because the relative success of games and the Switch was interesting. A whole sales forum was founded because comparing sales data is interesting. Console Wars are an example of said interest taken to the extreme, but being critical towards any form of that interest is just silly to me.
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I think there's a difference between finding it interesting - which, for the record, is pretty clearly the angle you and most others are coming from (including myself!) - and actively rooting for a specific result.

I doubt this discussion would have gone anywhere if the original post was "it will be interesting to see if it can overtake the PS2". But that's not what it was, it was "I really hope it'll outsell the PS2". To me, that goes beyond enthusiast interest and into fanboyism territory
 
hologram said:
I think it's possible for Nintendo fans on a Nintendo forum to discuss the Switch's impressive sales without becoming a corporate cheer squad. Besides, AlwaysOnDeck's original question was:

and no one has really answered that.
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And what does one gain from say the 49ers winning the super bowl? Nothing and yet fans will party like they won the super bowl themselves. You can argue its all tribalism but why is it always oh they're just sports fans and it's totally normal to party after a huge win they had nothing to do with or benefit from but when gamers celebrate their preferred company's "victory" its oh you need to go out and touch grass? I feel like it's a holdover of gamers are losers and therefore need to be told to get new hobbies? I'm not advocating for console warring or corporate cheerleading but I just find it interesting that sports fans are normalized behavior but gamers are always chastised for the same behavior. There's very little difference in the behavior but gaming is considered anti social and I don't really like that
 
TheQuietone said:
but why is it always oh they're just sports fans and it's totally normal to party after a huge win they had nothing to do with or benefit from but when gamers celebrate their preferred company's "victory" its oh you need to go out and touch grass?
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Sports culture has been criticized for decades? Like, just because something is prevelant doesn't mean it isn't criticized. The sports community is probably seen as one of the most toxic of all time. It's just popular so the mere act of criticizing it isn't going to stop it (just like console warring!)
 
AngryAlchemist said:
Sports culture has been criticized for decades? Like, just because something is prevelant doesn't mean it isn't criticized. The sports community is probably seen as one of the most toxic of all time. It's just popular so the mere act of criticizing it isn't going to stop it (just like console warring!)
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In certain circles online yes sports is criticized but in reality? I've never heard anyone criticize sports fan's behavior besides myself. I get looks for even disliking sports at all. Don't get me wrong I stopped console warring decades ago. I just never see this kind of push back for sports fans at all.
 
With sports it is different as the teams are literally in direct competition with one another where one wins while every else "loses." Switch wouldn't "win" anything if it passed PS2. You don't get a Super Bowl ring for reaching #1. So when many instances around this discussion was complimented with the downplaying comment of "well PS2 doesn't count because it was also a DVD player," the vibes can get a little weird.

If in 5 years from now, Switch is the new #1 and people are often saying "well it doesn't count since it's both a handheld and a home console," it'd be just as weird. Switch is already a gigantic success that bottled up lightning same way PS2 and DS did. It'll be neat if it ends up topping the list but it doesn't really matter that much.
 
TheQuietone said:
And what does one gain from say the 49ers winning the super bowl? Nothing and yet fans will party like they won the super bowl themselves. You can argue its all tribalism but why is it always oh they're just sports fans and it's totally normal to party after a huge win they had nothing to do with or benefit from but when gamers celebrate their preferred company's "victory" its oh you need to go out and touch grass? I feel like it's a holdover of gamers are losers and therefore need to be told to get new hobbies? I'm not advocating for console warring or corporate cheerleading but I just find it interesting that sports fans are normalized behavior but gamers are always chastised for the same behavior. There's very little difference in the behavior but gaming is considered anti social and I don't really like that
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I already addressed the sports analogy:
hologram said:
Sorry, I missed your other post.

I think the comparison to sports kinda nails it on the head, but probably not in the way you intended. Sport has become extremely commercialized and is very much all about money these days, but at its core sports is supposed to purely be about the competition, the winners and losers. Choosing and sticking with a team is tribalism, sure, but at the end of the day celebrating victory is celebrating human achievement, and critically the achievement of the player or team, not the corporation which owns them on any given day.

This isn't the case for consumer products. Console makers don't make consoles to win, they make them to sell a product and turn a profit. There's still tribalism and team mentality in the console space, but it's a bug, not an inherent feature. In fact, it's arguable that the logical endgame of this mentality is console wars, which is often pointed to as a quintessential example of how toxic video game discourse has become. You're not celebrating the designers, or those who manufactured the Switch. You're celebrating Nintendo, the corporation. And it's not really a celebration of human achievement - this is very much a product being made in a capitalist system, and I hope nobody is naive enough to think that the best products or most worthy creators are the ones that usually get rewarded in such a system.

Now, I should point out that I'm not saying no one should be happy about the Switch's success. We enjoy Nintendo video games, and so it's natural to want Nintendo to succeed to a point. If Nintendo doesn't succeed, there's the potential that they don't make another console, or scale down budgets for their games, which is obviously against our interests as people who enjoy those games. But we long ago soared past that point. Nintendo continuing to see record profits isn't going to increase the likelihood of future consoles or games - those are guaranteed at this point - it's just going to pad the pockets of shareholders. And hoping for the milestone of beating a specific other console, a milestone which I doubt Nintendo even really cares about, is nothing more than fanboyism and console warring in my opinion.
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If we're uncritically considering buying a consumer product as the same as a team sport, I think that's a problem

The better analogy to sports in the video game space is eSports. Unfortunately it hasn't fully taken off and seems to be having money problems at the moment, but certainly I don't think cheering on your favorite player, team, or streamer is a problem
 
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What even is this discussion right now?

I saw the original comment about someone hoping Switch outsells PS2 and was actually pleasantly surprised at how honest and transparent it was, even though I couldn't give two shits about Switch outselling PS2, as long as Nintendo continues to be successful enough to keep making games that I like. Meanwhile, many other people share the same sentiment as that post and are simply less transparent about it. I see no meaningful difference between the two takes, other than one being more transparent than the other. I suppose I'd rather know how you really felt than have to speculate.

What we're really talking about is whether console warring is any different than tribalism in sports, and I would argue yes, yes it is. When sports teams face off against each other, it is very direct and the literal main objective of the game is to defeat the opponent to win, so tribalism in this sense is encouraged, it's organic, and it's likely inevitable. This is not so with corporations competing in a capitalist market. The main objective is to turn as much profit as possible, which may or may not result in a company's products outselling another company's products, but as long as all the companies profit, they can coexist, so the tribalism is superfluous in this context and likely is the result of brand loyalty between different fans and the respective brands to which they're loyal.

At the end of the day, it's really not that big of a deal. Even though console warring did not arise for the same reasons that tribalism in sports did, the material effect on society is about the same in the sense that it's relatively harmless if it's not extreme and you ignore it. That post was pretty innocuous and didn't really warrant the kind of reaction that I'm seeing here, but then again, this is a video game forum so it's not at all surprising.
 
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