You lectured him on a prior post being worded as fact when it was speculation, but then praised a statement in a future post of his, which had been mentioned in the post you lectured him on.

So, he requoted it for you so you could see you were being one-sided in your initial lecture.

Sony pulled it back to viability this gen, and despite what they've done with Vita I think they are going to be a lot better at the launch of PS4 than they were with PS3. PS is the better performing brand for the company so it would be shooting themselves in the head of they ditched PS brand as an attempt to get back in black. As long as Sony survives PS brand will be around. And even if Sony dies brand PS is likely to be sold to someone else to live on...Samsung maybe. I'd buy a Samsung Playstation, as long as all the 1st party studios came with.

Ninty is a purely gaming company so they will be there as long as there's video gaming. There's really nothing to suggest Ninty would exit next gen even if they did worst.

While Xbox is not a main source of profits, nor their highest margin product, it's part of MS's overall strategy of world domination. If they ditched Xbox they can forget about owning the lounge/family room, which is simply not acceptable to them. Even if Xbox brand does poorly outside the American continent next gen, the Americas will be big enough for them to stay in the game long term.

I disagree completely with the OP that it's likely only one console will beat 50M in sales, I think it's likely all 3 will. And there's always going to be plenty of Ninty ans Sony exclusives because of the 1st party stables. I think all 3 can easily crack 50 million sales within 6 years. If this gen has a total market of >230 million units then next gen can easily have a total market of 200 million with the lowest selling platform getting at least 50Million of that

I don't think anyone will be leaving but out of the scenarios that could cause one of the players to exit I think Ninty imploding and self destructing is the least likely, MS failing in the Americas is highly unlikely and Sony dying as a whole company is unlikely. Given the least unlikely situtation is Sony dying then this is the most likely thing to occur. So if one must vote one must vote Sony.

To be fair, there is a chance otherwise, it's EXTREMLY that Nintendo ever would go Software only to where stating it as a fact is really quite plausable.

Anything strong enough to knock nintendo out of the console market likely would just kill the company all together leading to a liqidation of IPs.

The only reason Sega was able to "survive" there fallout is because they weren't soley console games.

They made arcade games, owned arcades and a number of other buisnesses that were pretty successful.

I accidently voted Sony on the new thread, meant to vote for MS.

While I agree that Nintendo isn't going software only (short of some major twist in the industry), your argument here doesn't really make sense.

Nintendo's games and hardware aren't actually their only product. Most notably, they have Pokemon merchandise and the TV show. There are others, though. And if Nintendo were in a position in which their gaming business was weakening dramatically, they would almost certainly refocus to compensate, likely towards merchandise and arcades.

First things first: as I said at the beginning and at the end of that post, I don't think any of the 3 will leave. I just speculated, for thesake of it and also for fun, who could leave based on what does the hardware mean to them and not based on financials like everyone else did (because it would have been boring).

Having said that, having their own home console now (as in the moment we are) is not as important as back then when they started with the NES. The hardware of the consoles no longer are a constraint as it was then, meaning that they could work with any console of the competence and still make the games that they want, not the ones that they can.

Also take into account that Nintendo can't do the same as Microsoft and Sony and go the powerhouse route with their consoles (something they realized after the GameCube and that lead to the Wii), and it's something that it is also present on WiiU (better than Wii/PS3/Xbox360 but will fall short of PS4/nextbox), and this fact has made the lack of third party support more evident, reducing their royalties income. And they also lost money with the GameCube, albeit during a short period.

What will happen with WiiU (will they sell it at a loss?, will it have more 3rd party support and therefore make more in royalties?, will they sell enough consoles to warrant the approval of a new console by their shareholders?) is a mistery.

It is for all this things that I went with Nintendo as quiting the hardware business but not the software business.

But again, the first post was ment to be a joke, with may be some truth inside and some fears, but a joke. Don't take it too seriously, neither the first one nor this.

Which are heavily tied around there games...

If Pokemon games don't sell, it's merchandise and TV show surely won't.

As for Arcades... they're dieing.  Ask the aforementioned Sega and Namco.

There are far fewer then there used to be, and many of them are alright with keeping decade old machines.

Honestly, does Nintendo even make Arcade games anymore?  I mean, i remember seeing a pretty recent "Mario Kart" arcade game however I believe it was liscensed  and produced by Namco.  I played Blinky if I remember correctly.

I mean, I'd imagine the majority of their revenue arcade wise is from their arcade hardware, which they base off their home consoles... most recent i know of being the Triforce... in conjunction with Namco and Sega, pretty much the last dogs in the arcade industry.

And what happens when many of Nintendo's IPs start showing up in arcades? Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, and Pokemon are the only ones there, now. What happens when you start to see 2D Mario games in arcades? I'm fairly sure that they'd be safe for a couple of years, at least, following which they would likely continue to adapt, and possibly even introduce something that makes arcades popular again (or not - it's kind of hard to tell).

And no, the Pokemon TV series is strong - so strong, in fact, that for Pokemon Yellow they had to change the designs of quite a few pokemon to match the designs of the TV series. The Pokemon TV series is particularly big in Japan. And the merchandise probably continues to do quite well in the absence of the games for a few years, at least.

Anyway, my point was just that Nintendo is pretty resilient, they would survive even if their console/handheld gaming business crashed.