nintendo was pretty open about the first month of the machine. 2 million sounded like a conservative number to me, but you also had people claiming it would be wii u 2.0 before launch. as positive as word of mouth had been early on, it was probably a safety net so they wouldn't screw themselves out the gate. the switch had some negative aspects before launch as well - the anemic launch lineup, no browser features, no virtual console, no video streaming options, etc. it was basically zelda as a proof of concept that the system could be pretty awesome.
that said, i think the system was obviously going to have a positive reception as early as october. people liked the concept and the 'first look' video they ran did about as well as sony's ad for their ps4 in terms of views and even better in terms of comments/likes. they learned from the wii u about not advertising a console during u.s. election season (ad space becomes more expensive), and they put that good money to use on tours across multiple countries and smartly-placed ads. the big misfire was the january conference, and the negativity that stemmed from that (which is mostly forgotten now). as it stands, the switch feels like something that had to be out before the end of the fiscal year to appease stockholders, and that it was super not ready regardless. it feels like a system nintendo might have wanted for fall 2017 instead of march 2017, but their hand was forced and they made the best go at it with the limited resources they had.
weighing the pros and cons of what could have happened at launch, i think it was smart to play a game of 'wait and see'. they got cocky with the 3ds for instance, using the positive reception at e3 2010 as a signal that it would be okay to price the machine at $249.99 at launch. i don't think they wanted a situation where the switch is hard to find on an essentially worldwide basis during its launch month - they'd probably want more people playing it and talking about it instead.
