If the OS is as half assed as it's sounding and the launch is rocky , it's really going to steal momentum from those November/ December sales.
This doesn't make any sense.
Look at all the great "momentum" Wii U had launching holiday season with like 30 games. Nobody knew what it was or why they should want one, so it had a poor first holiday season, which set the tone for the rest of its life. Third parties saw that nobody bought it or their games even during the busiest shopping time of the year, so they gave up on it, so nobody bought it even once it had some good games under its belt.
By contrast, look at the 3DS, which had a somewhat quiet launch but went into its first holiday season with a price drop and at least 3 big games that made it desirable (there was so much talk about the "trifecta" at the time). The public had seen it out in the wild and were intrigued. It had reason to sell, and it did.
the 3DS game plan is so vastly better than Wii U's. By holiday season Switch will have Zelda, Mario Kart, Splatoon, and Mario Odyssey, and lots of people will have seen them and know what the console is. It's a setup for plenty of holiday momentum.
What worries me about soft launches is, isn't a lot of sales momentum determined at the beginning of a consoles retail presence? I feel it needs to be perceived as a valuable product from the get go.
I would argue that most of its momentum comes once it's been through its first holiday season. While it is possible to launch close to that and sell well, it's not a given.
In fact it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, when you think about it. When a new console launches it will nearly always sell out of initial shipments from early adopters. And the holiday season is a busy shopping time of year. Why would you launch then, when you know you're already going to sell out, and then have to try to keep up with demand in the lead up to Christmas? Why not get some perspective on how the console will perform in the market first?