Gamecube made Nintendo money. They profited pretty well. They profit off Wii U. They are fine.

Meanwhile back at Nintendo......

It isn't all about console sales. Nintendo's software is mostly 1st party so they make tons of cash from that, and amiibos have sold nearly 1 million to date.

When you have one direction as your user pic I can not take anything you say with any kind of anything. Nintendo is in a better spot then sega was.

just another day on the internet

That's quite the outlook you got there... so in 4 generations that Playstation is in the market and the only generation where they weren't #1 was during the time where every casual and their granny bought the Wii to play Wii Sports. And that was with a console that was double the price of what Nintendo put out.

I'm really not sure what you mean by real hardcore, but in my view someone that will early adopt a new console at top price with a nearly empty game library trusting their company of choice will deliver is the hardest of the core gamer. 2 years of Wii U on the market and seems that less than 8 million is the hardcore cap for the big N.

About the attach rate comment, it's hardly surprising Nintendo games have higher rates. 1, they put out less content than Sony, 2 they sell less hardware, 3 there are about 0 good 3rd party games being sold on the Wii U. You pretty much are forced to buy 1st party games as there's a dry, empty desert out there when it comes to 3rd party.

i have nothing to say about the money they may or may not make. i'm not a shareholder

The Wii had a lot of casuals, yes, but those were a different kind of casuals from the PS2 era. The parents and fitness casuals have moved on. The Wii in the end wasn't very profitable anymore. The majority of the console casuals moved back to Sony (not a bad thing in sé). And 1st party software does net you more money then the commisions you get from third parties. But of course, Sony and Microsoft have so many 3rd parties on board and Nintendo so little, it makes for a not too bright financial balance.

The Wii U is now more a console for the Nintendo faithful, the Nintendo core and hardcore. And even though the Wii U is now around 8 million. Being able to bank on prob 10 million at the end of 2015 is not bad for a console with very high 1st party attach rates.

I'm not saying the Wii U is a financial miracle, far from it. I'm saying Nintendo's output for now will net them enough profit to sustain and rebuild some reserves for the generation to come.

my main question was regarding your statement that the Nintendo core base is 'much higher' than Sony's. I think we can both agree that is absolutely not the case, correct? unless you'd believe the core Sony crowd is under 10M, which would be in odds with the common complain that the whole internet is playstation biased :)

again, regarding the financial situation I never discussed it, I'm glad 10M is enough to consider a console a success, I wish it was the case when Sega was around, I could be playing Shining Force 7 by now :P

Asriel said: Yeah, I think at this point people asking these kinds of questions just aren't paying that much attention. With Wii U, they'll aim to profit and sell plenty of software and amiibos. I wouldn't be surprised to see more DLC to help with high profit margins. I wouldn't write them off. The Dreamcast forced Sega out of hardware because Sega had burnt money on the Mega-CD, 32X and Saturn before lurching onto the Dreamcast and losing money on that. Nintendo still have billions in the bank, and while they have had a rough few years financially, they should return to profit this year. Nintendo have already said their home and handheld console strategy will be different next time around, and they're expanding outside of gaming for the first time in over 30 years. They're not going to throw more money at Wii U in an aggressive attempt to gain marketshare. They'll write it off as a failed experiment and move on.

no.

I agree that releasing another home console as successful as the Wii will be tough, but don't under-estimate Nintendo's record for innovation.  For every Virtual Boy and Wii U failure Nintendo also has a Wii, DS, Game Boy success story.  Also don't forget about Nintendo's Pokemon craze that was beyond huge in the '90's and single-handidly saved the Game Boy.  Innovation doesn't always have to come in the form of a new home console and Nintendo has many different fronts that they can make a comeback from. 

For example, does Nintendo even need to bother developing a new console for televisions or can they start to look at developing hardware that connects to Tablets and Smartphones via a Cloud?  Could selling Smart Phone protector cases that come with circle pads and buttons could prove to be Nintendo's next huge innovation.

Whatever Nintendo does, I seriously hope that they never go 3rd party.  Nintendo is a company that historically carves out a niche for itself through innovation and finds success in that bubble.  Going 3rd party would force Nintendo to play by the same rules as everybody else and I think you would very quickly see them become like Sega and other various Japanese developers that are currently struggling both creatively and financially.