You do realize by posting that you are traumatizing those who trying to forget that segment in the history of Nintend, don't you?

Ahh good old CD-I, back when companies thought multimedia was a killer app on its own.

Competition is a good thing, an example: PSN wouldn't have improved had there not been a competitor who did it better.  At this point I don't think any of the big 3 view Apple as a competitor, I believe the 3DS is selling poorly for reasons other than there being iOS devices.

i think after the price cut truly takes affect, and the fall lineup that is coming starting in sept with star fox that everything is gonna be fine and the stock prices will rise back up. the wii though needs some help and a $99 price cut to help its sales until the wii u does launch, would do the trick for a few months i believe.

If that shit ever happens again, I don't know what I'll do, possibly burn down some buildings?

Replace "multimedia" with "cinematic experience" and you get what has impacted the electronic entertainment industry today.  Fortunately, unlike what you had with the CD-I the predominance of games today are actually PLAYABLE, even if they are shallow, linear and derivative (devolving as Yahtzee said in his Extra Punctuation article).

The main problem I see Nintendo having is they are not capturing the expanded audience which made up the vast majority of consumers on Wii & DS. Where is Brain Training on 3DS - that would have been a killer with the price drop. It's early days though, when 3DS has software it will sell. I do think Nintendo is right to continue to ignore iphone/apps etc becauser they do not make as much money as people think. At some point in the future the app market will come down - as this latest global recession has taught us all nothing goes up forever and when it does come down it can do so violently.

And yet again, analysts say stupid things, though it's not as if I was expecting much of them. Nintendo doesn't need to get into the smartphone business, because the reason people buy smartphones/tablets is different than the reason they buy a video game console. The former is for phoning and it's PC like capabilities, while the latter is just for games. In the former games are a great add-on, but not a necessity, while for the latter multimedia capabilities are a great add-on, but again, not necessary at all.

This at least shows that they are in two seperate industries, and so not competing directly at all. And hell, the exact same thing happened with home consoles in the 1980's, with the NES, so why would it be different now? Although PC's at the time ( just like today ) were so much more powerfull than consoles and could also play games, it didn't stop the NES from being a huge success.

3DS selling horribly has nothing to do with smartphones: it's because Nintendo themselves have messed it up, by trying to force the Gamecube philosophy down our throats, screwing over their traditional handheld customers. And they even messed up the hardware, with the terrible battery life and awkward D-pad position. Because of that, people are rejecting the 3DS, and a single game or two won't change much. The 10 billion in reserve won't help much, since the problem isn't so much about capacity, though buying or creating new studios is always a good thing, but about the mentality at Nintendo. If they don't change it, then they're screwed either way.

Oh, and one last thing: it gets to me that anytime someone uses angry birds as an example of iphone game success, they only mention the downloads, but never the sales. Sure, there's 200 million downloads, but those include free versions which account for the large majority. I just can't find anywhere the recent complete sales figures.

@ioi: are you planning on tracking download sales anytime soon?

The Wii should do fine this holiday season even at 150.  However, if they did knock it down to 99 it would probably take the holiday season even with only a few games being released on it.  If they leave it at 150 it will probably end up in second or a very close third (although I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up first even at 150).  I would expect a price cut around spring 2012 but you never know.

Just release a Just Dance 3 pack, a Zelda Pack and a Wii with Mario Kart and Wii Fit for 200€ and Christmas will be really good for Nintendo! A MW3 pack or a Goldeneye and Epic Mickey/Fifa 2012 pack for 200€ aswell wouldn`t hurt either.
There`s lots Nintendo can do to do well this holiday season!

Nintendo putting their games on competing platforms helps one group of people: short term investors looking for a quick buck. Long term it would seriously undermine Nintendo's own platforms, and eventually force them into a third party only publisher. Hopefully, Nintendo's management is smarter than to cater to the selfish interests of these investors who don't give a shit about Nintendo's long term future.