Financial analyst Mat Piscatella has chimed in on what he thinks of the Switch 2 and its prospects at launch.
We’ve seen that demand for the Switch 2 seems so high around the world that even Nintendo’s careful plans to increase their capacity to make the console isn’t enough to meet it. Piscatella is executive director at Circana and also specializes in the video game industry.
As reported by GoNintendo, he’s shared this analysis on that incredible demand:
I think the thing with this is that you have such an enthusiastic, dedicated audience, that I don’t think the launch lineup matters at all. What matters, I think, is the lineup as it looks six months in, when you have to start really trying to go after the more mass market or console enthusiast buyer, not just the Nintendo dedicated fan, because that person is going to buy this thing no matter what.
So yeah, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter for the first few months. It will matter in holiday. I’m much more concerned about what that holiday slate looks like, which we don’t really know yet.
True enough, the Switch 2 launch is happening in the middle of the year, and any shortages in supply could be met by the time the holidays come. On the other hand, Nintendo would still be interested in selling the original Switch, and they may actually have a bigger focus on that if they’re still busy making more Switch 2 units to sell them.
Piscatella also shared a more casual opinion on why he thinks the demand is so high. While some have speculated on good old FOMO, or some FUD surrounding how US tariffs will affect consumer good prices, Piscatella believes consumers are looking for something else. Again, to quote him directly:
It’s been so long since we’ve had a new console hardware platform. It’s been years. It’s been a long time, and people are looking for things to kind of get their mind off of what’s going on elsewhere. You can even see it online, just the desire people have to have something to be excited about. I don’t know, maybe it’s just my own perspective, but I just see this palpable desperation, in a sense, of wanting to find something to bring joy. And a lot of people are locking on to this, which, good for them.
As Nintendo of America Doug Bowser quipped after the Switch 2 Direct, the company’s aim is to create smiles in their customers. And while a lot of those smiles are from older gamers who grew up with Nintendo’s classic consoles, one can certainly say they continued to be a part of children’s childhoods generation after generation. We would probably need a sociological study to actually verify this, but maybe Nintendo really has successfully marketed themselves, and also made their games in such a way that they really do create those smiles.
