Do we know this for sure?  The Gamecube sold plenty of software too, and much of it was first-party Nintendo software, for which they collect higher margins.  I'm not saying you're wrong that handheld sales accounted for most of Nintendo's profitability, but remember that the `cube cost less to produce, so they weren't taking big hits on hardware.  I've never seen a breakdown of Nintendo's revenue and expenses for Gamecube versus GBA.

Historically, third has meant failure (and anything below that meant horrible embarassment and possibly bankruptcy), though some would say the Cube is debateable. We're at the stage where the market's big enough that third will likely be plenty for this generation, as long as it's not Sony taking that. If Sony gets third, they failed.

Nintendo has made (and continues to make) most of its profits from the portable industry. However, they have most likely been profitable with their console efforts for the most part throughout both the N64 and Cube.

Well first place is gold, then ther eis everything else.

i would have to say the busines strategy failed but ultimately that means it failed... 350,000 in a year is failing even if there are no other systems out... some of you said  as long as people buy it its not failing but microsoft supposedly put a lot of marketing .. and promotion into the japan market and they have only been able to budge an inch in that market... when you put that much money into something at the beginning you expect it to pay off at the end if it has no chance right from the get go to meet those expectations then it failed plain and simple... only way you can say it didnt fail is if those are the expectations they set for themselves.. which if it is why even try at all

even the ps3 in a sense failed the japan market because they are definetly not meeting expectations so far... but they will sell over a mill this year which gives them a chance... a small chance to make some gain on their goals...

Class Dismissed

"place" means nothing.  If there are five consoles on the market, but the sales of the #5 console are 18 million units, and the sales of the #1 console are 25 million units, and each machine ends up with a final attach rate of 6 games, is #5 *really* all that worse off when compared to #1?

Last generation, if either Xbox or GameCube hadn't existed, I think the other one would have failed.  They kept each other alive by saying "see, the competition's viable, and I have the same market share." Xbox was the more numerically successful of the two, but GameCube made more money.  When you combine the two market shares . it gives you something within reasonable reach of Sony, meaning the two combined couldn't be ignored.  But one alone could have been.  See DreamCast.

 What matters in the long run is final numbers, in comparisson to the competition.  All of the competition.  If you've got a competitor with numbers that look similar to yours, you're viable.  If you've got a competitor with numbers three times as big as yours, you're lagging behind.  But you're only a failure if the only one that applies is #2.  Saturn was a failure because its numbers were too far below N64 numbers, and PS was trouncing them both.  N64 was viable, but not a success, because of its early performance and it's relatively high software attach ratio.

 You can't really make concrete rules for things like this.

PS3 = unprofitable, lack of good games, last place

seems like a failure 

john,

It's too long! Seriously, I want to read it, but get to the point. Pleease. Or put an executive summary in the first paragraph.

TC: to tell you the truth I have Never heard anyone in my life saying a console failed because it was in third place. No one ever said the gamecube failed because it didnt it just didnt sell that well.

Now onto the 360. People are saying it failed in Japan because it is "failing". At the rate that the 360 is selling I dont see it selling over 1 million in Japan till  late 2009. Well thats if Microsoft keeps making there console there. Japan doesnt like Microsoft at all. Microsoft even said that there own Windows Vista did "fail".  Microsoft has been losing so much money on video game consoles that its unbeilivable, I looked at something somewhere and it looks like Microsoft has lost around 1-5 billion (I forgot the exact number) on the Xbox and the 360 doesnt look like it will be making money for them either.

People are saying the PS3 is failing because its not selling as well as they hoped and I hate to but its true they arnt selling as many as hoped. The reason is though because of the price. No one wants to spend 600 on a console. NO ONE! If the PS3 came out at 300 bucks then it would still be sold out but Sony cant do that because they cant afford it. There losing around 200 per console right now.

Off topic, but: Am I the only one who thought the dreamcast had better graphics than the PS2? The PS2 always seemed kinda blurry and pixelated for my tastes.