Thought Exercise: Could Nintendo Fly Solo?

[Final-Fan]

Sqrl said:
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.

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.)