The Nintendo Switch has continued to absolutely shatter expectations since its launch earlier this year. With more third party support than ever before, and the constant updates keeping the portable console fresh, there is a lot to love about the latest platform from the Big N. According to one market analyst, if Nintendo were to release a Pokemon game for the Switch next year, that market value could go through the roof!

NPD Analyst Mat Piscatella says that 2018 will be another smashing success for the Switch, and he detailed how it could be even better when he took a few moments to answer questions on the popular gaming forum Resetera. He dove right in with insights on the current market today, what it could be months from now, and what the demographic is looking like. Here a few key points that we came away with (Italics are the original posts he was responding to):

Personally I really don't believe it has anywhere near the same kind of demand as early Wii (nothing ever will probably have)

"Switch is on pace to exceed Wii by 20%+ over the first 10 months of sales. The thing is though, the Switch, from a demographic and usage basis, is nothing like the Wii. It’s much more a core gamer console than anything Nintendo has done since maybe NGC? And because it’s a hybrid, multi console ownership per household could be a thing, making upside potential bigger than the Wii."

Pokemon + Switch next year = Wii Like numbers I'm betting on that.

"Yeah, if Pokemon comes next year I can easily see Switch outpacing Wii and taking 40+ share of the hardware market next year. But it does depend on if Pokemon is next year or not."

To be fair it isn't a great comparison due to the Wiis extreme shortages for a year.

"Launch year sales are almost always supply constrained. We don’t know what could have sold for Wii or Switch in the launch period because both are supply constrained. But sales are sales, and stats are stats."

Question, if Nintendo decides to make the switch an iOS like platform with a single library, no clean breaks, how will the unit sales be counted?

"Current thinking on this contingency would be to keep current platform designations until exclusive software exists for the new platform that cannot be played on the old. So, for example, if the next version of a box is released but all software available would work on both the new and old platform, we’d roll all these sales together into the existing platform naming convention. If, however, some games only worked on the new box, it would be classified as a new platform with software sales allocated to the platform the title is marketed under. But who knows, other weird things may occur that would blow up this thinking."

It's interesting to see the success of the Switch in such tangible terms, and it looks like it isn't going to be slowing down anytime soon. Players have been wanting a Pokemon game for the latest system since launch, it would be fantastic to see make its way onto the hybrid for 2018. More and more industry folk are speaking out in praise of the Nintendo platform, it's looking like 2018 will only continue to bring great things!