I don't find this particularly surprising. The Switch is the best hardware concept and actual product Nintendo has made since the Nintendo DS (I'd say superior to that as well) at a competitive MSRP, and then it launched with the first mainline Zelda with in years, the best Mario Kart that most missed due to it being on Wii U, and Nintendo's best new IP that was also overlooked due to being on the Wii U.
To top it off the system has a new mainline Mario due out before the end of it's first year.
All that said, lets not act like this is some sort of sign that all retail software is moving truckloads on the system or something. Shortly after launch the tie ratio for Breath of the Wild was higher than total numbers of Switch systems sold. Mario Kart and Splatoon likely also have tie ratios that are massive outliers. It gets easy to set software sales records when you have what many of your core audience would see as three "must buy" titles in the system's first six months. But chances are this is another example of Nintendo eating everyone's lunch.
Except I suspect that is less a thing than previous Nintendo consoles, more balanced like the handhelds, and with a healthy market emerging for digital distro/"indie" titles that can live within the gaps in Nintendo's first party calendar just fine.
I think it's a great business model. But then, I'd of course think that since I've been saying Nintendo needed to go to a hybrid system prior to the Wii U. It was always a matter of when hardware caught up to the model in an acceptable way.
FYI, EA is required to release on all major platforms if I recall as part of their agreement with FIFA. It isn't a "get", it's an obligation.
The Switch will do fine but it's going to be second this generation and will be lucky to beat the Wii's numbers all while Nintendo sacrificed their dedicated handheld market to achieve it. Wii+DS>Switch, WiiU+3DS~Switch.
1. Dedicated handhelds are a dying market anyhow. The Vita was a superior product to the PSP yet the later sold comparably to the 3DS while the later didn't break 15M. Meanwhile the PSP did that in a market where the DS was a PS2/Gameboy level market leader.
Smartphones took all the air out of the room. Nintendo outlasted Sony because of their strong handheld IPs, better understanding of what sells on handhelds, and the major Japanese 3rd parties seeing the writing on the wall early, leading to consolidation behind the 3DS.
2. Nintendo had to take hardware losses on both the 3DS and Wii U at various points. Do you really think they care about zero to negative profit generating hardware units sold? The goal of the Switch isn't to match Wii + DS hardware sales. It's to consolidate the user base. That should result in less R&D and hardware manufacturing costs while increasing the tie ratio above what a dedicated home console or handheld could achieve.
This analyst comment in the OP, while heavily flawed, speaks to that actually happening.
