I do think the console race is basically going to become a 1-2 horse race between Sony and MS.
To be fair to Nintendo, I think they are simply cracking under the pressure put on their shoulders. No other game company is basically responsible for selling *two* distinct platforms every month.
They basically have to do all the hard lifting on the 3DS and Wii U themselves, sure the 3DS gets some OK support in Japan with Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest, but even in Japan a lot of companies seem to be exploring cell phone/tablet gaming rather than supporting the 3DS heavily.
In USA/Europe, Nintendo pretty sells both the 3DS and Wii U on their backs entirely.
It's a large strain ... Nintendo can still move hardware, however we may be reaching the point where Nintendo has to acknowledge that supporting two platforms like this is simply impossible for them to do successfully on two fronts.
Even in the GBA/GCN days it wasn't really like this because the GBA didn't really require as much new software. They didn't make a new Mario for the GBA, and farmed out the new 2D Zeldas out house, etc. etc. etc. But nowadays the 3DS needs main line entries into major franchises as much as the console side does and it can produce 2nd gen quality 3D visuals on top of Nintendo also having to deal with HD development on consoles ... it's too much to ask from one company I think.a
Sony/MS basically just have to support the 3rd party content on their systems. We've seen that Sony can't carry a platform on their own (Vita).
