Why do people think that Nintendo could go or should go third-party?

[Kai_Mao]

pokoko said:
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.

I didn't necessarily say it like that, unless you were referring to what others have said. I said the reason why Sega left the competition was because they were bleeding money and they could no longer support the Dreamcast or any future console long-term. Nintendo could possibly fare better than Sega as a third-party. But as you mentioned, fluctuating revenue would be a problem, especially if consumers are already fed up with too many Marios, Zeldas, and Pokemon at this point.

It's an interesting debate.

Btw, I apologize, again, for everyone who had to endure a long post. Just a lot of thoughts in my head regarding this topic.