Will all of the Big 3 survive next generation?

[JEMC]

darkknightkryta said:

I was refering to the Gamecube which apparently sold at a 10 dollar loss, or something small at launch, are you talking about the Wii-U when refering to production cost?  And how are the Wii and DS absorbing the 3DS' losses when Nintendo is posting losses?  They wouldn't be losing money if the Wii and DS are currently generating enough money.  They were very profitable before, they're not now.  Though even selling at a profit will the 3DS have the software sales to cover the costs of running Nintendo?  And should the Wii-U fail to break even for the first few years will the 3DS make enough money for Nintendo to stay profitable?  I don't believe it will, the 3DS isn't exactly a software monster, and Nintendo has already released sequels to the games that made the DS sell 400k weekly for years.  Again, my belief is that the current 3DS and VIta sales are due to the current tablet/smartphone market, and the console market will likely shrink for the same reasons.

If I remember correctly, the GameCube was sold at a loss when they droped the price to 99 USD, and for a short period. Again, the GameCube has been the worst consoles, in terms of sales, in Nintendo's history. Using it as an example of what will happen with WiiU won't give you an acurate perspective as things are different with no one entering the console business like Microsoft did, the different success of their predecessors, etc.

On the losses of Nintendo, a real description of the situation would be that a declining Wii, which had a price cut, and DS weren't able to compensate the losses of 3DS and the increased R&D costs of WiiU. The shift of their development studios from Wii/DS to 3DS/WiiU also meant that they weren't able to launch enough big games to help.

There are so many things that can happen in the future that theorize what will happen is too risky.