The focus on Nintendo's past in this thread shows that this argument in terms of Nintendo is no longer viable. If you must reach to two or so decades ago for evidence then your evidence is useless in our current times.
Considering the meat of this argument is about Nintendo, even though the question seems broader than that, I would say there is no argument. Now-a-days, third-parties ultimately choose their fate. A modern example: there are multitudes of third-party companies that say they want to support the Switch and they perfectly well have all the tools to, yet there is still a lack of major third-party releases even though many admit the venture would seem to be profitable. They can/could've already, they say they want to, but the decision whether or not to make money is left up to them.
TLDR: Fate and possible revenue is left in the hands of the third-parties themselves.
