in the coming years what do you think nintendo should spend their wads of wii/ds cash on?

 i'm gonna guess that no company ever has made the kind of profit from video games in a given amount of time like they are now. they have the two fastest selling systems ever, they are making plenty of profit off each sale, and have many multi-million selling games out for those two systems (mostly for ds but in the coming years wii will get plenty too).  anyway, so what should nintendo spend their vast riches on?

putting money into the online service maybe, trying to make an actual community like xbox live. i haven't yet seen anything good come out of the wiiconnect24 thing, maybe they can start actually sending us cool free stuff thats worth having through that service. maybe adding demos of games, cheap headsets (maybe free headsets with every smash bros. purchase, thats me hoping with the delay they add in voice chat by then). or give us deals on VC downloads like once you reach a certain number downloaded you get a free download. that would encourage people to buy more VC games so could actually make nintendo more money, win-win. maybe bringing out a really affordable hard drive which would also encourage more downloads so win-win again. or maybe pump a ton of money into game development in order to come up with new IPs. or somehow spend a bunch of money to not only bring in 3rd parties but convince them that they need to actually make full, deep, quality games for wii instead of just mostly ports and low budget, bad graphics, sloppy controlled side projects or mini games. i dunno, but they gotta be doing something. with all that dough they're pulling in they should be able to do some really big things for the wii to really bury the 360 and ps3 (although ps3 is pretty much buried already). or maybe they should just spend ridiculous amounts of money on R&D making an ultra mega cool next gen system that'll combine the best parts of all systems plus innovate in more new ways. what do you kids think?

Well, if I was runnign Nintendo I'd be looking into non-gaming ventures with the potential for long-term pay-off. Gaming is a rather volitile business, and while they have their hand on the pulse now there's not telling when someone else is going to to come along as Sony once did and kick their asses to the curb. They just need to find a niche with massive growth potential and not lose money on it as they have done with other non-gaming ventures they've tried out.

I'd also consider some loss-leading strategies. Not on their consoles, of course, since they have come as far as they have by always makign a profit on those. But if they want something like the balance board to really take off, then one of the best chances of the happening is selling hte thing at a loss for a little while. Expanding their grip on the market they are already good at is almost a good as establishing themselves in another.

If they just wnat to stick to gaming, though, they could just buy a major 3rd party (instead of the little ones they normally pick up) and increase their stable of big name franchises massively.

Yeah, I would definately consider going after a solid 3rd party company or two and consider bringing them into the Nintendo family, OR starting up a new development team or two. The one weakness that Nintendo tends to have is bringing out quality software in a timely manner. Since the independent 3Ps don't appear to be taking up the slack, Nintendo's going to have to do it themselves.

R&D in the next gen console is already going on I'm certain, and for sure they'll well support that. But right now Nintendo has an obscene amount of money to play with and I'd suspect they'd bought out a major studio they feel could bring them new games and help them have a steady supply of games for boths systems at all times.

Most likely: Square Enix - FF, DQ and KH exclusive to Nintendo would kill Sony, period.
But there's many other major studios suffering from huge investments into PS3/360 with less than expected returns and would be ripe for a buyout. Factor 5 perhaps. Take Two would be another, and that'd certainly add a totally different dimension to Nintendo's line-up. GTA only on Wii/DS. 2k Sports titles Nintendo only (and better quality), etc.

I also expect more Wii channels, even at a loss, as Nintendo seeks to not only win over Microsoft/Sony but traditional TV as well.

Nintendo theme parks...Yup....this is the obvious next step.

Move over Mickey.

I'd like to see Nintendo get into making their own TV series which they could offer on Wii through a free VOD service. Original Nintendo content would be awesome. They could make the money back by selling advertising spots inside their shows.

I'd also like to see Nintendo invest and save their money for a rainy day. You can never have too much money in the bank. Who knows what will happen in the future.

If I was in charge of Nintendo I would invest some money on property. This would be some easy money depending on the type pf property they purchased. I would also try to purchase a 3rd party company or buy a substantial amount of shares of a small 3rd party company. Furthermore, I would open a small movie production. This way Nintendo can use some of their writer’s ideas in making animated films using Nintendo characters and entirely new ideas. I would also consider investing heavily in the new markets such as China and S. Korea. If Nintendo uses the correct marketing strategy in both markets Nintendo can see a substantial increase in software sales and hardware sales. Finally, I would have Nintendo try to create a new use. For instance I would have the DS available on schools campuses, where students can buy the DS for the use of a calculator, dictionary, … encyclopedia.

I would look at how much it would cost to buy Square Enix (and thus their properties such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, etc.). I think this would be a death blow to Sony in Japan and a huge hit to them in other territories as well.

 Im going to expand on this idea, use the money to buy territories. Such as Australia. 

Or possibly make a fort out of wads of cash and then have a money fight.

Ok ok, being serious. If this generation carries on the way it is they could plausibly buy out Sony and either ditch or sell SCE and the playstation brand (I don't think one company making two consoles is a good idea, keep some of the devs and series though) and then benifit from their electronics division when times get tough.