I think some were going after Nintendo before launch, but not all. And there has been posts on these forums to both sides of this issue. I have seen posts that say Nintendo is working hard on 3rd party, and other threads where people make a case that they are sitting back. The point is we don't really know because this is all behind closed doors, we can speculate on comments from interviews all we want but until they come out and tell us the whole story we are just speculating.

Don't miss-understand me though, I have no problem with people speculating just make it clear that this is what you are doing. All to often people try to pass their daydreams and ponderings as fact and reality. Hell, I've probably been guilty of it myself if I am being completely honest.

I'm sure Nintendo knows 3rd party support will help, and sure they have never gone *completely* solo, but like I said you are just trying to redefine the term. When people say go it alone it means minimal 3rd party support which is what the cube had.

Well... I don't really like to do this. I am stating an interview without a source. But he did mention that they were going to do everything they could to get third party support on it. This was not speculation.

It is an old interview. He starts out by telling the story of how he became the president of nintendo. He said something on the lines of "I was called by the previous president and thoght I was going to be fired. Instead, he asks if Iwata would like to be Nintendo's president." I am saying this because someone might remember and have a link. After that, he starts talking about how he viewd nintendo at the time and what they were going to do to change it.

Anyway... if someone finds this, I could make a better argument and prove that they mentioned they were going to do everything they could to get third party support.

Actually in my OP I was speaking about a hypothetical situation in which no major third party suport existed at all for the system.  

But in terms of a realistic minimum of third party support, the Gamecube had probably just about hit the bottom.  Out of the 23 million-plus sellers listed on Wikipedia, there are only 4 not published by Nintendo, and 3 of those were Resident Evil games by Capcom.  (#4 was a Sonic game.)  I doubt very much that it's because Gamecube owners turn their noses up at anything that's not Nintendo.  So, clearly, with only one or two third-party publishers making big efforts on the Gamecube, Nintendo did just fine, making profits that compared favorably to Sony at the height of its domination.  (That comment about Sony was complete speculation on my part, I would welcome getting bitch-slapped with a Truth-stick.)

I'll say it again. Two points is a line, 3 points is a pattern. N64 and GCN were a line. Wii appears to defy any attemp to read a pattern into them.

You have to remember the underlying reasons for the weak 3rd party support:

N64: Backlash from poor SNES negotiating tactics, and choice of expensive cartridge format while Sony provided more financially viable alternative.

GCN: Started out improved, but 3ps were firmly aligned with PS2 due to PS1's success, and MS was paying oodles of money for extra features and support. The 'Cube ended up losing 3P support not so much for their relations with 3Ps as for their general bungling of the GCN itself.

Wii: Held back info in Wii until it was too late for many developers to really get a good game ready for the launch. Also, but completely changing the paradigm both in terms of graphics and controls, the Wii was a giant question mark. So they hedged their bets and put time and resouces into the consoles that demanded them. Now, because the Wii is a huge success, the PS3 stumbled out of the gate, and the XBox has been stalled at 10 million sales most of the year, 3Ps have been reallocating their resources in the Wiis favor.

Regarding your edit of my OP:  Well, duh.  That is implied by the past tense, i.e. that is no longer the case. 

Regarding the "GCN bungling" comment:  in what way was the Gamecube bungled?  It was a wonderful piece of hardware, and I really dont think "PURPL 4 KIDZ LOL" actually hurt sales that much.   

Regarding the post in general:  I never said there was a pattern.  But if you want to get right down to it, there WERE 3 points on each attribute of successive Nintendo consoles I named.  The SNES, N64, and GCN all had successively fewer hardware sales than the preceding console.  The N64, GCN, and Wii all had successively less third-party support -- at least until it became obvious that the Wii was going to smash all kinds of sales records.  

Better Questions would be if Sony or Microsoft could fly solo.

The PSP is the answer to Sony's hypothetical. Yeesh. Most of the PSP's third party games just flop hard, and the 1st party games either suck and/or also flop hard. They basically have to go it alone, and as a result you have a platform with the least enthusiastic userbase in history and possibly the lowest software tie ratio since the Sega Pico.

Microsoft? Absolutely not. the only games they've made that have been successful were Halo, Forza, and Gears of War, given all that and their third party license fees and remarkable market presence, they've managed to lose $8 billion. If they had no third parties (and thus, no license fees) I would imagine those losses would be magnified and expanded, possibly even above $12 billion.

"They can go solo and they have, but to win the console war they need 3rd party support in addition to the 1st party games."

Damn, they certainly took Japan without third parties, kinda like how they did it with the DS. The third parties will have no choice but to back the market leader there soon. Or they can die off. Which is good for Nintendo since apparently they can fly solo. :D

huh?? HUH?? Did I just read what you just said? 

http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=&console=PSP&publisher=&sort=Total

Sorry but I see the PSP chart completely dominated by third party titles, with the only first part million sellers coming in at #8 and #10. That is NOT the definition of flying solo.

http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=&console=GC&publisher=&sort=Total

THAT, is flying solo. The PSP had a tonne of third party support but sales just flopped in general (With the exception of GTA Liberty City Stories, but can anyone deny that the only reason the sales of that game are so high is because it had a bug which allowed you to run your own code and game backups?). Sales didn't flop because Sony had no third party support. Sales flopped because we'd seen all the games before.

Did you actually look at those PSP games? Most are quickie ports, and with the exception of Monster Hunter 2, non were released past 2005, you know, when people were absolutely sure the PSP would destroy the DS, so the third parties concentrate on it more. Since then not a single PSP game has even threatened or entertained the idea of busting 500,000 worldwide, let alone 1 million. These "Game" things are simply bombing on PSP. this requires Sony to at least ATTEMPT to support it themselves, and it appears they are absolutely horrible at it as the list of 1st party game flops on PSP reads like a who's who of popular games on the PS2. I'm sure that million seller list would look a whole lot better if Sony's first party games were more popular, but they aren't, thus my assertation that the PSP cannot fly solo, despite being FORCED to by extremely low game sales.

I think we may have a misunderstanding here. I know that the PSP didn't fly solo in the beginning, but they basically are now, with the hotly anticipated titles being mostly Sony 1st Party (God of War, GT 4 Mobile,) with little if any enthusiasm over third party games or games in general on the PSP.

Yep. A solo rarly seen 3rd party Nintendo console would still make Nintendo money and keep us nintendo fans happy-ish.