Bigger software sales is the key for success

He won't answer and if he does he will make a mistake with Gameboy...

Gameboy+ Snes 114m 

Gameboy ( GBC ) +N64 87m 

GBA + GC 104m 

* Gameboy sold 64m in nine years, then GBC another 54m in  4/5 years! Gameboy remained in market with 12/13 year without replacement, so it two gen handheld console! Nintendo released a revision ( gbc isn't a massive technological leap over GB ) but it had a big exclusive gaming library, plus that the few games that were also compatible with the old GB, people must preferred to play them colored!

The same can be said for Sony & Microsoft.

PS2 sold 157 million & PS3+PSP sold about 165 million. PS4+Vita will not match either of those.

Xbox 360 sold 85 million and Xbox One will not match that.

Will Sony sell 160m PS4s+Vita? Of course not but Sony is doing a lot better than they were last generation.
Nintendo started last gen bad with losing money but they recovered and still made profits and that's pouring onto the Switch generation.

From a combined 250 million sold units with the Wii/DS shrunk to barely 80 million with WiiU/3DS.

Barely 80m... Barely?

Nintendo discontinued 3DS? Didn't know it! Too pitty, its sales were so yoy up on holidays in the west, stupid Nintendo, what did you do?

Indeed. But also incurr in some losses, which is worse.

Hopefully this gen can get better results.

Does positive switch news mean we have to grasp for straws? Duh nintendoomed since 1800s!

What a surprise a negative Nintendo related thread by the usual suspect. Just to put things in some context, the dedicated videogame hardware business is in decline. Sony sold last gen something like 170M-180M (PS3-PSP) - and won´t come anywhere close to that this gen either. Microsoft also looks like it will see notable decline as well by the end of this gen. While the emerging markets getting stronger will slow down this downward trend, I expect that we´ll see further decline next gen in USA, Europe and Japan.

So except for the 7th gen, Nintendo sold roughly the same amount of consoles each generation.

If Nintendo hadn't hit those anomalies, your thread wouldn't exist now,  as 8th gen is comparable with gens before 7th gen....

However, some people remember that wii/ds were anomalies, only when they want to use that as to  denigrate the extraordinary vast success of Nintendo in 7th gen!