'playstation family stronger than ever'

[ ....... and the Playstation family is stronger than ever. ]

I will not even bother to read beyond this.................. lol

Nintendo are in a tough position--but I think it's a tough position occupied by a formidable company. They have a host of popular IPs, some of the most talented developers in the industry, and a huge war chest of billions of dollars. They can throw enormous weight and support behind their systems when they need too--the DS didn't truly take off worldwide until mid 2006, when the Lite model, NSMB and Brain Training hit the West. I wouldn't write the 3DS off--Iwata has signalled Nintendo's intention to bring out the big guns, starting in summer with the eShop, Zelda, Star Fox and Dead or Alive, and continuing after summer with Super Mario, Kid Icarus, and most importantly, Mario Kart. Also, he's signalled that Nintendo will seek outside help to change the way 3DS and Wii are marketed in the future. The Wii is easy money for Nintendo--even if they 'only' sell 13 million this year, that's still profit on every unit. The Wii software line up right now looks abysmal, but could include anything up to Zelda, Wii Play:Motion, Mario and Sonic at the 2012 Olympics, Kirby, Rythm Heaven, Last Story, Xenoblade Chronicles, Pandora's Tower and more for this year--we'll know after E3, but that's enough to keep the system chugging along decently, even though the system won't ever explode again like it did in 2008. They also have the option of further price cuts and re-introducing titles through a Player's Choice range.

We also have very little confirmed information on what Project Cafe truly is, or what kind of third party support the machine is receiving--and we'll only know about this after E3. Any conjecture based on this machine and third parties abandoning it in favour of Sony or MS's future offerings is pointless at this point in time--we don't know enough to speculate seriously yet. The fact is, Nintendo aren't going to dominate the industry as they did a couple of years ago, but they don't need to. Sure, profits are falling as R&D spending increases, but that's what happens with console sales--the DS and Wii cycles are falling off, and the 3DS cycle is only just beginning, with the N6 cycle yet to start. The 3DS is experiencing a rocky start, and sure, the Wii has seen better days, but its better days were sales peaks no other home console has matched. I think suggesting the industry suddenly has Nintendo in the headlights is too alarmist, to be honest. Yes, Nintendo needs to adapt to overcome the challenges facing it, but look at what they've accomplished this decade. They've bunkered down around the classic franchises people know and love while extending their reach to a market many assumed didn't exist. Nothing is certain, but if any company can thrive in a tough place, it's Nintendo.

Aye, and remember that this is the company that, running on only GameCube and GBA, out-profited the PS2 through its heyday. Even in their "bad" direction and sitting at near market-irrelevance on the home console front, Nintendo's one helluva company, and yes, given that warchest, if Nintendo ever decided to get fiscally aggressive, the gaming world had better watch out

The other issue with falling profits is that you have to remember exchange rates, the slouching dollar/pound/Euro means when NCL has to report its profits, it reports them in Yen, making the numbers look worse than they are, as that money is mostly in use abroad

To get tangental at this point, i'll agree that NoA's approach has been lackadaiscal, and that's seemed to be the case since 2008, where they haven't worked that hard at doing much of anything (except for their extraordinary efforts pushing Professor Layton and Dragon Quest IX). Either they need some sort of shakeup, or NCL needs to give them a swift kick in the rear to get them in gear

The Gamecube was a 'worm-eaten corpse' in 2006, and Nintendo didn't really do much of anything to keep it palatable.  Going by VGC, it only sold a million that year, and the best selling game was under 700k.  It only had around 40 releases that year, and the only Nintendo releases seem to have been Baiten Kaitos Origins and Twilight Princess.  Both of which came out close to or at the Wii launch.

The Gamecube shipped only 910k units of hardware and 19,990k units of software in 2006.
Just for reference, in 2007 it shipped 200k hardware and 3960k software.  To put that into perspective, the PS2 shipped more software in January-March 2008 than the Gamecube did in 2006 and 2007 combined.  January to March 2011 will probably also see more PS2 hardware than GC hardware in 2006 and 2007 combined.

Needing to compare the Wii to the Gamecube really kind of highlights its current predicament.

While it is true that Nintendo's fortunes have waned for the seventh generation, they are in fact in the best position to seize the eighth generation.  Microsoft is only now close to breaking even on their investment for the XBox 360, taking an abnormally long generation to do so, and Sony has lost so much money that they've managed to wipe out all the gains they've made with the PS2, the most successful console of all time.  On the portables front, Sony shot itself in the foot with the PSP Go, and the NGP has given the 3DS a head start of an entire year.  As for third parties, they are just about bled dry, having witnessed a generation where record losses in the face of record revenues was the norm.

To put it simply, forjust about everybody except Nintendo, the seventh generation has been an unmitigated catastrophe.  Many practices that became prevalent in the seventh generation, like taking losses on hardware as a matter of course, and moneyhatting developers for exclusives, won't be repeatable in the eighth.  To top it off, Nintendo's competition is financially trapped in the seventh generation due to sunk costs, and the need to recoup expenses, as I alluded to earlier.  If Nintendo moves up the launch timetable, they put Microsoft and Sony in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between abandoning their sunk costs, or handing Nintendo a huge head start on the eighth generation.

I am aware that Nintendo has substantial challenges in attracting third party support and repairing their reputation with 'core' gamers, but this is meant largely as a dissenting opinion in terms of just how d0med Nintendo is.

To highlight and expand upon your point about third parties, this is why i feel Nintendo will have no problem "getting" the hardcore. Getting total control of the hardcore is impossible, but Nintendo can easily make their platform a third alternative for a gamer of any persuasion because they'll have all the third party blockbusters Sony and Microsoft will, simply because third parties will *need* the extra revenue in the future. I imagine there are a lot of PS360 gamers who only play the multiplats or play the consoles mostly for the multiplats, and aren't especially bound by preference for either Sony or Microsoft's first party fare. Nintendo has it all over Sony and MS as far as first parties go, except in the realm of the FPS and the Racing Sim, which third party franchises would necessarily bring to the table. Also, having a third viable platform in the system would make moneyhatting next to impossible, because either Sony or Microsoft would have to put up the kind of money to make a given publisher forgo not only one, but two whole platforms

The transition will be the toughest time as far as third party support goes. The flood of older ports and poorly-optimized new games for the first year or so is what Nintendo will have to soldier through, but once proper parity is established, the ball is in Nintendo's court, the question is if they can maintain that momentum and come out of that tough time ahead

No, the point is, by comparing it to the GC is stupid, because they aren't even in the same league, as you just said.

"playstation family stronger than ever"