Not a chance in hell. You are speaking of Nintendo as if they have never operated with 3rd parties or have any sense or, seemingly, made games. Bayo1 was not a successful title (at best it returned on its development, one multiple consoles over multiple years on a much larger install base), numerous other publishers turned it down and SEGA cut funding of an in-progress project with at least decent headway into development. No one looks at that and expects a good title to come out and perform unexpectedly, not when the predecessor couldn't even make good sales without being tossed into bargin bins.

Nintendo wasn't even shopping for this title as Kamiya has now made obvious, PG was the one who was looking and Nintendo didn't come up until near the final-death of the title and whatever work they had done. The title was greenlit on the past prospects that the WiiU was going to do well, to fatten up the portfolio, but those illusions were gone last year. Not cutting the project, on a project that would never sell exceptionally or really shift demographics outside a few thousand here and there, was definitely not the act of a "for profit" mindset. (Likely, too, Nintendo got to skip out on some development cost depending on the contract and how far along the original work was...) (There's a reason that Sony and M$ didn't pick this up, especially Sony seeing as how these games have been fairly tied to the brand with DMC and other action titles, they're not going to sink money on a dead IP (and Sony's not going to fund anything they can't own the IP to). They'd make a new IP rather than continue an old one, which is what M$ is doing.)

Ultimately, this is still in-line with what Sin&Punishment 2 was, a title for fans, one hopeful to bring new core players to the console, but not a title that was ever expected to turn a profit or revolutionize the image of Nintendo.

Hm, yes, now that I think about it, Nintendo has never made a misstep or misjudged the market.  What was I thinking?  As we know, anyone who has made games cannot over-estimate how well a game will perform.

Might want to slow down on the hyperbole juice.  I never said they thought it would sell ten million units but did they think it would sell more copies than it has?  I'm pretty damn sure, to be honest.

Let's not build men out of straw. There is misreading a market on the heels of success and expectations, and then there's thinking a game that was a commercial failure will somehow magically become a commercial anything-other-than-failure. There is precedence for Bayo2 to fail, there is no precedence nor was there a market expectation from anyone in the industry that it would succeed or be a worthwhile investment to fund. So I cannot believe that any company in this day and age would "over-estimate" a title that has never achieved anything more than an acclaimed cult-hit.

I'm not arguing on expectations of it selling bad to less bad, it was always going to sell poorly and exactly how poorly is yet to be seen world wide but you have to consider that the first barely broke six digits with bargin bin sell through and massive advertising budget from SEGA. There's no reason for a company to overestimate this time of "failed" product. I am arguing on the fact that Nintendo did not make this as an investment they expected to make them back their money or make much money on in general. They did it to fatten their portfolio on offerings and as a move to court fans, ie. a move for the fans. They may well be a for-profit organization but moves like this aren't made on the basis of "profit first" because profit from this sort of move is never guaranteed. And, again, there is precedence for them doing stuff like this "for the fans" (and with some expectations to draw in outside fans of the genres) in the past.

If Nintendo cared about sunk costs so much and "for the profit", they'd have axed this project last year, we're talking a year+ of development time where they already knew the picture of the WiiU's failure.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=190776

LOL nice response by Kamiya.

He is totally right!  Nintendo stepped in to see it through development, and so it makes sense that it is an exclusive.

You can't be mad at anyone here, Kamiya just wanted to see the game finished, and Nintendo were the only ones that would help.

People just need to suck it up and buy a Wii U if they want to play it rather than port begging/complaining on forems.

your looking at it all wrong.

Most people with multiple console start of with oh I want that "ONE" game. Then when they get the hardware they go, well FMD i jsut spent $XXX on this shit. Perhaps I will buy some other exclusives. Then suddenly when a gen ends you find yourself with 20+ games on each system.

Let's not build straw-men?  I said that I think it's possible that Nintendo might have over-estimated Bayonetta and you replied with, "You are speaking of Nintendo as if they have never operated with 3rd parties or have any sense or, seemingly, made games."  Where did I say that Nintendo thought Bayonetta would turn a profit?  You might want to follow your own advice.

The franchsie is pretty much dead now anyway, let it go

That might be just a tad overdramatic.

"Hm, yes, now that I think about it, Nintendo has never made a misstep or misjudged the market."

That's as sham and hyperbolic as they come. No one said they can't make mistakes, so leading your reply off with that very sentence is... bad.

I agree with you on "why" they took up the game from its death bed, to a degree, but I do not agree on the idea that they somehow thought this title would suddenly become anything more than the original: why would they expect it to sell much of anything when a combined user base of several tens of milliosn couldn't push the original over a million naturally? On a console with no such userbase either in size or orientation. There's no reason to say they were over-estimating a dead title... it was dead for a reason. They may have thought the WiiU would be in a better place but that reality became apparent over a year ago and they've had ample time to pull the plug or update their estimates and budgets accordingly. I just see no reason to assume they over-estimated it, and then continued to over-estimate later.

This was a move to court fans, and fans of the game and this type of gameplay, it has courted but that's not large a number (at least in Japan). It was a financial sink to build at the core gamer. And, considering how Iwata operates, I can easily see him continuing a project on a game like this because he loves games, sales be damned (every once in a while).

You yourself are going into hyperbolic "screwing the consumer" with the original 3DS price. That WAS the price of it construction. They may have overshot their expectations with the 3D gimmick but it wasn't like they had a 100$ mark-up on the hardware. And if anything, Bayo1/2 is anything but screwing the consumers with two for one deals like this.

Your notion of them "screwing the consumer" is nothing short of fantasy.