Microsoft and (especially) Sony had to take gargantuan losses in order to release the 360 and PS3 at prices that were even remotely affordable. Those are giant corporations with tens of billions of dollars and other divisions to help prop the gaming divisions up for awhile.

Nintendo, being solely a game company and being last place in terms of console sales, couldn't afford that risk. They had to make money even if the Wii sold only five million. As seen in the huge shortages of the system, they couldn't possibly have predicted the wild success it was going to be.

*rolls eyes* I've been saying this since 2006. Nintendo always intended Wii to be a five year system. In 2006 HD rates were insignificant. Nintendo internally argued about whether to go HD or not, but felt it would be more cost effective to go without, the next system would be HD and but that time HD would be pretty standard.

Their thinking was sound. Wii sould incredibly well, had lots of 3rd party support and won the generation. Not to mention was the fastest selling and probably the most profitably console in history.

Problem is, it's past it's expiry date. Wii U should have been out a year (or two) ago as was Nintendo's original plan. I believe Wii's stellar sales plus Apple's presence in the portable market caused Nintendo to focus on 3DS instead (dispite DS still having incredible sales) instead of Wii U bumping Wii U's launch to this year. In hindsight, I think that will prove to have been a major mistake. It's controller is no longer innovative and Wii U's graphics look dated even before it launches.

I told you I fixed OP, what is wrong with you? Anyways,

What about the business risk the Wii imposed on Nintendo, AND on 3rd parties, please address the questions.

But if the PS2 also suffered losses while the cube barely did, why couldn't they simply adobt a cube strategy? I know viper is answering that pretty well, but I want to see other POVs and I've asked him follow-up questions already.

I never mentioned that in OP, never suggested it in any way. I'm talking about a dual approach: Wii-mote and HD. How isn't this clear though? Should I rephrase something, I d k.

i'd like to think, ninty would have had a larger share of the market. the only thing is that 3rd party likely would have had the same problems with Wii HD that they did with Wii.

What about cube controller compatibility though? Didn't cube owners also buy the Wii? Wouldn't red-ocean (the HD twin customers) likely own some cube controllers? Why didn't they market the controller in the states? I know they sold a white cube controller in japan (I bought 2 imports), but why did they just cut it in its infancy? Why discontinue the wavebird? Why the classic controller (what a PoS, seriously).

Why not just give people the choice, that's basically the question. Give customers the choice, give 3rd parties the choice.

In the end, it seems Nintendo themselves didn´t like what the Wii is.

The GC hardware strategy was a combination of low cost but highly efficient components.  The Wii actually continued that strategy but the difference was that you could create a console with that strategy and still be competitive against a brute force console (PS2 and Xbox) while that wasn't possible to do against the X360 and PS3.   The low cost/efficient style components simply didn't exist during the early development days of the Wii.

That's what I wanted to know, your replies are spot on. But the question is, why? What did Nintendo use for Flipper was it ATI? So, are you saying that Nintendo couldn't find an architecture and work it over 2-3 years like they did for cube, as HappySquirrel mentioned in the other thread?