Nintendo was never doomed

[Wyrdness]

DélioPT said:

Of course it matters how long it takes to reach a certain goal, when comparing two consoles.
And when you speal of context and speak about expanding the market, you can't, at the same time, ignore that during GBA's era it was basically one console generation (Wonderswan was only out in Japan, i think) and 3DS' generation there were two consoles on the market.
By default, 3DS' generation would attract more consumers (more diversity).

But let's look at context.
What's ironic is that, despite needing more time to achieve it's 67m figure, 3DS managed to outsell GBA in Japan, by, give or take, 6m (Vita only put up a fight in Japan).
You speak of cheap HW, but with the exception of US (GBA was 99$ here) it was priced at 149 or 14.900 in Europe and Japan, respectively.
3DS, after the price cut, was 170 everywhere (i think).
Not a big difference in price, was there?

Looking beyond the 67m figure - where 3DS sits at - if GBA didn't have to fight DS and PSP we could be talking about how GBA reached the 100m mark instead of 81+m units.
A number that 3DS will/would never reach despite not having competition - excluding Japan.

Not to forget that if 3DS' replacement had come out 4-5 after 3DS launched, like it happened with GBA, it's numbers would have been lower than they are now.

So, no matter hwo you look at it, 3DS performed worse, with the exception of Japan.

I said two consoles, but i was speaking about handhelds, which would mean 3 consoles on the market.
If Nintendo could pull off selling 3 systems to people (and support them well) it would have been great for them as they would increase their revenue and most likely, profits.
We all know that was more of a dream than anything else...

More platforms doesn't really mean more consumers it just means more choice for the consumers already around, what brings in more consumers are blue ocean like strategies not more platforms. Have you not been reading the posts you're replying to I've been flat out pointing out that GBA was a monopoly in other words one platform generation, I assume you didn't understand what is meant by monopoly.

3DS cost £220 at launch and was that price for 7 or so months, to put things in perspective the Wii cost £180 and the Wii U Basic cost around £250 at launch, Gamecube was £140 at launch and N64 was £240, 3DS was not only almost 100 quid more than the GBA and DS it was essentially going into console territory for pricing because the hardware wasn't the usual cheap basic approach of the GBA. After the price cut 7 months later it was being sold at a slight loss, GBA however was being sold at a decent profit despite being almost 100 quid cheaper that is what's meant by cheap hardware as they could price GBA easier. Even at 170 quid 3DS was still as pricey as the (at the time) two previous Nintendo home platforms at launch or in the case of the GC more pricey. This is a key reason why Switch is marketed as a home console in the west.

Read the third part of your post again it sums up the GBA and what I'm pointing out the second other platforms turned up it dropped off so in other words had the GBA had to deal with what the portables that came after had to it would have sold much less and at a slower pace. You know no 3DS replacement came out 4-5 years later? Because unlike GBA the 3DS is actually a platform designed for a competitive market and not a monopoly while GBA had to be put away because it would have failed to fight any competent competition.

The final part of your post makes no sense Nintendo struggle to support 2 platforms now you're arguing supporting 3 platforms is possible? Are you having a laugh here as it's almost like you're ignoring the reality of the market here where it has shown that more than one platform can't be supported effectively and has resulted in the opposite of what you're painting, that part of your post is a what if fantasy at this point because both Sony and Nintendo have shown only one platform can be properly supported. The Switch cleveryl got around the problem of abandoning one market by having a hybrid form factor to operate in both markets as one device.