Forward-looking: An official Nintendo Switch 2 announcement is coming soon, before the end of March. Assuming the handheld does launch in the first half of 2025, an analyst expects that it will sell 4.3 million units in the US by the end of the year. However, he also believes that the country’s best-selling console over the next 12 months will be the PlayStation 5.

Mat Piscatella, the executive director of video games at market research firm Circana, posted his Switch 2 predictions on social network Bluesky.

Piscatella writes that selling 4.3 million Switch 2 units in the US this year is based on it launching in the first half of 2025. If that figure proves accurate, Nintendo’s upcoming machine will have accounted for around one-third of all video game console hardware units sold in the US, excluding PC portables.

Initial demand for the Switch 2 will of course be enormous. Piscatella writes that this will lead to supply constraints for several months following the early sales surge, adding that the number of sold units will depend on manufacturing capabilities.

Piscatella followed up with, “supply constraints coinciding with/driven by initial demand boom. But this is just an assumption, I don’t know anything about [manufacturing] resources being put to this thing.”

Massive demand for any item means it usually ends up on eBay as scalpers try to take advantage of people’s desperation. In July, Nintendo said it hopes to avoid this situation simply by manufacturing enough consoles to satisfy customer demand, which might be easier said than done. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa also said that the company was considering whether it could implement other scalping countermeasures.

While 4.3 million units is no small number, Piscatella believes that the best-selling console of 2025 will be the PlayStation 5. Sony’s machine topped both the unit and dollar sales charts in January, February, April, May, September, and November 2024.

While the PlayStation is entering the latter stages of its life-cycle, falling prices and the arrival of the PS5 Pro are expected to aid sales. Don’t be surprised if the latter becomes more popular as we approach the launch of GTA VI, which still isn’t confirmed to have a PC version.

There have been numerous Nintendo Switch 2 leaks recently, including a patent confirming its use of a DLSS-like tech.