I'm not saying I want Nintendo to go third party but I will never understand the mindset of, "it didn't work for SEGA so it cannot work for Nintendo." There is really no reason to assume that consistency would fall off a cliff at Nintendo the way it did at SEGA.
Now, in order to really analyze this, we'd have to list the positives and negatives of both positions. That's a daunting task, to be honest. Most people, when they discuss the possibility of Nintendo going third-party, they simply decide based on what THEY want and rationalize the logistics to support that. That's useless.
I think they'd be successful as a third party developer but I'm not quite sure that the increase in available user base would make up for the loss of a consistent revenue stream. Becoming software dependent would mean fluctuating revenue, which can be difficult without the evergreen franchises of the sort EA and Activision have. More pressure to have a consistent release schedule might result in even more series fatigue for some of their biggest IP.
It's a complex situation that would need an in depth study to document all the advantages and disadvantages.
