How much hardware does Nintendo need to sell per generation to remain relevant?

[zorg1000]

Soundwave said:
People get way too caught up with semantics sometimes.

I think it's clear the OP's point is how low can Nintendo's hardware go before it's not viable for them to remain a hardware manufacturer.

Yes, and I have actually clarified that on a couple occasions but people still want to throw around "as long as they're profitable", without realizing that if hardware gets too low it means their software won't have a large enough install base to sell to which will cause them to no longer be profitable. At what point can Nintendo hardware no longer support their software?

Right now 3DS clearly show that at 50 million units sold, their 1st party franchises have a large enough userbase to sell very strong numbers on.

Pokemon X/Y-13 million

Mario Kart 7-10 million

Mario 3D Land-10 million

New Super Mario 2-8 million

Pokemon OR/AS-8 million

Animal Crossing-8 million

Smash Bros-6 million

Luigi's Mansion-4 million

Tomodachi Life-4 million

Ocarina of Time 3D-4 million

Nintendogs+Cats-3 million

Link Between Worlds-3 million

Paper Mario-2 million

Mario & Luigi-2 million

DKC Returns 3D-2 million

Fire Emblem-2 million

Kirby-1 million

Mario Party-1 million

Kid Icarus-1 million

Pokemon Mysery Dungeon-1 million

Pokemon Rumble-1 million

Yoshi's New Island-1 million

Now let's say, the next handheld sells only 20 million, would that be a large enough install base for these titles to sell high numbers? Ya the real big hitters would still be multimillion sellers but overall Nintendo wouldn't be making nearly as much money from hardware/software and would likely need to downsize then have to scale back the number of games released which would then lead to less system selling software which then leads to hardware sales continuing to decline which then leads to less profits and the cycle would continue to repeat until they are no longer able to operate.

So I agree with u that 50 million or so should be big enough of an install base for Nintendo's unified devices next-gen to have strong software sales and post strong profits.