Buying third party publishers is always a bad idea unless it's to prevent MS & Sony from aquiring them. Whatever gains from the company purchased would be offset by alienating all the others further.

Profits should go to increased internal development & paying dividends to stockholders.

I believe Nintendo has a very effective strategy at play now, and it would be  counterproductive for them to stray from their core business into media/mp3-player market, even moreso as that market is so single-handedly dominated by Apple. Same as it would be foolish for Apple to try to enter the handheld gaming console market, I think.

We have to also remember that there already is a handheld mediaplayer/console, made by an extremely well known brand in both media and gaming markets, and though it has sold respectable numbers, it's nowhere close to either iPods or the DS. So, I believe it would not be a good idea to make another do-it-all-product, and it could serve to dilute the brand instead of strengthening it.

They should invest it in building more DS/Wii factories. I need to buy another ds, but they're friggin' out of stock EVERYWHERE!

Actually if you read the post before this one I mentioned million sellers including RE, but stated that it is already on other platforms, where it is highly profitable.  I also as part of my million sellers comment address RRR AND Red Steel, when I claimed that two of the Wii's third-party million sellers were shooters, and discussed the sequel to RRR.  Speaking of cherry-picking, its funny you should mention RRR and in the same breath claim Ubisoft didn't release any significant games since then, ignoring the shocker that was RRR2!

As for NMH and crackdown?  It takes only lowball intelligence to realise that I was talking about the content and style of the games, and THEN making a sales comparision.  Even if I haden't been, are you saying that Killer 7 bombing on the PS2 justifies NMH bombing on the Wii. 

Perhaps next time you will read and think before you give an extremely trollish and one-sided comment that accuses someone of being both stupid and a fanboy. 

The game is not currently available where I live, and yet every review I read claims that it has reasonably high production values.  Also, I distinctly remember Crackdown ranking high on the Xbox Live lists well BEFORE the Halo 3 Beta, so that debunks that argument.  As for Blue Dragon, ES and Lost Odyssey, have you seen their Japanese attach rates?  Want to compare it to NMH's Japanese attach rate? Hell, even comparing raw sales they beat it.  The Xbox 360 is regularly called the shooter console, and yet Blue Dragon can sell over 200,000 copies in the West.  In any case, BD and LO are both first party titles and ES's development was funded by MS.  My argument is that THIRD PARTIES can make a better profit on the 360.

The Xbox 360 is not a shooter console anymore, but third party RPG's and shooters can make massive profit (and they are).  But the "casual" Wii console, only makes money for first-party casual games, with the exception of guitar hero which is available with better graphics and online support on both other consoles.  

How about instead of simply criticising me, you point to the third parties that are making MORE profit off the Wii than the 360 (and to a lesser extent the PS3 I guess), rather than just toeing GGE's line? 

starcraft said,

My argument is that THIRD PARTIES can make a better profit on the 360.

That's not true. The Xbox 360 is not selling well in Europe and Japan. And this trend is going to continue in Europe, if Micrsoft does not do something, and Japan, where the Xbox 360 is dead. This will lead to 3rd parties being able to reach a wider audience on the PS3 and the Wii and make more profit than they would by only producing games for the Xbox 360.

Furthermore, more Japanese developers will be more than likely to develop more games for the PS3 and the Wii due to their larger fanbase. This means more 3rd party profit for the PS3 and the Wii. This will be a problem for the Xbox 360 for a long time during this generation.

@ patjuan32

Read the thread, I'm not arguing for a moment that the PS3 cannot sell third-party games. What I'm saying is that the Wii struggles to turn meaningful profit for these developers. Right now the Wii ALREADY has a MUCH larger userbase than the Xbox 360, but the 360 is making MUCH more money for third parties. Arguably so is the PS3.

The problem is, I don't think the mp3 player market needs any additional competition, and Nintendo would not want to dilute their brand by expanding into new markets that would be difficult to compete in.  If they do expand their product line, it will be either an entirely new product directly related to gaming, or some other form of interactive entertainment.

I think that Nintendo is investing their money beck into game development, as we can see with the Fatal Frame IV deal and the mysterious Factor 5 deal. It just seems that rather than simply gobbling up studios and setting them to work on Nintendo games, they're making partnerships with studios as a financer and publisher of projects on Nintendo platforms.

It seems that Nintendo is wary of going down the road of neverending acquisitions and consolidations. They've seen this strategy flounder for companies like EA and Take 2, so they're choosing to be cautious (as always) and retain their small company size and the flexibility that affords them.

So they lend support to third parties to ameliorate some of their risks and give them some access to Nintendo's top-rate development resources. In return, Nintendo will reap more than just licensing fees when these games hit the market.

I think going into cell phones is their best opportunity. They already have a massive library of GBA games that could be easily ported. In addition, Nintendo has the best small memory, small screen programmers in the world.