Famitsu sales number are in!

[choirsoftheeye]

@Sharky

stof and Naz mostly covered my responses. However, I'll add the following:

1. The Gameboy Advance was a massively successful handheld. In 5 years it sold 70% of what the Gameboy did in 10. Your argument that the original Gameboy was the only worthwhile previous handheld is just wrong.
2. Nintendo is NOT a small company. It's one of the top ten companies in Japan, and just because they don't lose money on their consoles doesn't mean they couldn't afford to.
3. While stof may be correct that Nintendo doesn't need to come up with an awesome new control scheme ("gimmick") for their next-gen consoles, just because you can't think of somewhere new for them to go doesn't mean they can't.
4. Seriously though, gimmicks are things like the Virtual Boy's screen that you strapped to your face or the eCard reader or the Pocket Station or the screen on the Dreamcast memory card. Things that ultimately have little to no impact on gameplay, much unlike the Wii or the DS. Whether or not you enjoy/like the direction that Nintendo went with its last handheld and console, neither rely on a gimmick any more than the N64 relied on the "gimmick" of the analogue stick.