| Erik Aston said: Nintendo cannot team up with another company for hardware development and keep their traditional advantages. |
I agree with the rest of your post, but Nintendo cannot pass up a chance to collaborate with Sony.
Nintendo's corporate mentality is still one of survival. In fact, it has explicitly stated that it hoards large amounts of cash so that it can survive during the lean times. The video games business is supremely competitive and Nintendo, and despite its success with the DS and the Wii, understands that well.
Collaboration with Sony essentially takes out a crucial competitor, and there's no way Nintendo wouldn't like that.
But how will Nintendo maintain their integral advantage? Iwata stated that he's very proud of the fact that at Nintendo, hardware and software games work in the same building. He's very proud that at Nintendo, hardware is created at the demand of gaming ideas, not the other way around like PS3 or 360.
It depends on just what this "collaboration" is. Sony understands the reason behind Nintendo's success, thus a collaboration would only be worthwhile given Nintendo strategy is intact. It is a very delicate balance, and not at all easy to pull off. But hey that's the executive's job to figure out this optimization problem. The synergy is too immense for them to ignore.
the Wii is an epidemic.
