See, here is what I don't get, Mummelman. Scrolling through your long wall of text, and amist all the "Nintendo is teh doomed!!1" jargon, what I am picking up is that your main thesis seems to be that Nintendo shouldn't rest on their laurels, and go into action to ensure they don't have their momentum shot for the next gen, and essentially dooming them for the next gen.

But with the Wii already obtaining an insurmountable lead, I feel it's the opposite. That is, they are putting MS and Sony in a tough spot and forcing them to play catch up. They are bascially in a lose lose situation from my view.

EITHER... Sony and MS continue to try to ride out the sales of their respective HD consoles, playing catch up with the Wii (which they will never come close to passing anyway). Meanwhile Nintendo launches a new console first and gains a huge headstart next gen.

OR... Sony and MS release their consoles first in an attempt to gain their own head start, and cuts off the life of 360 and PS3, essentially eliminating any hope of the HD consoles to draw closer to the Wii. Either way Nintendo has the advantage.

The ball is in Nintendo's court. They just need to act. I DO agree with you there. And they have PLENTY of cards in which to do it. Vitality Sensor/Wii Relax, Zelda, one to two $50 price cuts, DQX in Japan, more motion plus games, etc. MS and Sony have basically thrown everything they could at Wii, along with most third parties, including console redesigns, multiple pricedrops, and their own motion control versions.. and only NOW are they slightly outselling the console. It's just that Nintendo right now is focused on bringing out the 3DS, but this obviously does not mean they will be concentrated 100% on the 3DS from here on out...

It just makes me laugh how even after a Nintendo console sells 85 million with massive profits, 34 million units away from its nearest competitor, coming off a 22 million selling console.. they STILL get all the "DOOMED!" talk. People just LOVE to talk about Nintendo being in trouble.. Damned if I know why... Perhaps it's because they constantly make a profit, and people want to see them taken down a peg. Or maybe they are just sick of them. Whatever the reason, it is clear to me now that no matter WHAT Nintendo does, how successful they are, getting the "doomed" talk is about as certain as death and taxes :P

There's a difference between being doomed and making yourself look bad. Losing momentum this quickly is worrying no matter if you've sold 85 million consoles or not. Show me another market leader console that had sustained 45% drops year over year. Record breaking sales pace = record breaking decline. I've said this a hundred times in here; the Wii is a sprinter and not a long distance runner.

Developers don't want to see a market leader falling from outselling both competitors combined to selling significantly less than either in short time with nothing done to prevent it. Do you think this bolsters 3rd parties' faith in Nintendo for the next generation? You saying that this will have no conequences seems weird, I believe you are too intelligent to be that naive, to be honest. Losing momentum this fast is bad news no matter how one looks at it and no matter how much you've sold, it says something about your product, your market and last but not least; your resolve and dedication to keep things going.

But with the Wii already obtaining an insurmountable lead, I feel it's the opposite. That is, they are putting MS and Sony in a tough spot and forcing them to play catch up. They are bascially in a lose lose situation from my view.

EITHER... Sony and MS continue to try to ride out the sales of their respective HD consoles, playing catch up with the Wii (which they will never come close to passing anyway). Meanwhile Nintendo launches a new console first and gains a huge headstart next gen.

OR... Sony and MS release their consoles first in an attempt to gain their own head start, and cuts off the life of 360 and PS3, essentially eliminating any hope of the HD consoles to draw closer to the Wii. Either way Nintendo has the advantage.

You've really created a false dillemma here. It is pretty obvious that the response will always be to release the next generation console whilst continuing to support the present generation devices as they simply haven't gone out of date, even less so than the Wii was when the Wii was released. The real important question is 'where does this generation leave Nintendo with respect to their competitors?' With this you can't easily point to Nintendo being nearly as dominant going into the next generation as they ought to have been judging by the success of the current generation. Being 'outsold' as market leader doesn't do them any favours even if they have a large install base. Whilst Nintendo has been reaping those profits in the short term both Microsoft and Sony have been building up their online networks whilst at the same time taking away Nintendo's main competitive advantage in their exclusivity with new control methods. Nintendo may not be able to bridge the gap in that respect so please don't fiddle on your fiddle as Rome lays burning.

Haha ok, and yet again Nintendo will be heading into a generation "doomed." What else is new?

Honestly, when will people learn?

not true

Is Kinect eating into Wii sales?  No.  Is Kinect 360 redesign eating into Wii sales?  I say yes.

Kinect and a massive budget for marketing has probably made a difference, but I really don't understand how MS can be making money.

I know many of you have no respect for Malstrom, but he did make a funny point about MS spending their marketing budget on buying their own console and doing better. Text book.