Yes, they make money from it but at the same time they are playing it too safe. If they actually put some real effort into making their unused IP's or new IP's maybe they wouldn't need to be so reliant on Mario. I see what your saying though, they can do both but that would require money. You say that they will keep making Mario because it makes money. I don't think they are willing to spend said money on development teams. Either way, Nintendo does need to expand. I don't care how they do it it in the end.

Developer is too small.

They should buy an entire publisher. That ought to bolster their game output.

Metroid Prime 1 and 2? What is better? 

EAD is great, but retro is better IMO.

I must get back to playing metroid prime trilogy soon. 

Anyway, if you take EAD as a whole they are a lot better, but I'm not sure if tokyo alone is better than retro. If retro made more games in genres that I like, like donkey kong country returns, I might hve put it over. As it stands though, I'm starting to bring monolith into this. Xenoblade is awesome, and if X and their next 3ds game is as good, they might just be the best if you ask me. Intelligent systems pretty good too. 

Nintendo should have bought THQ when it had the chance. Other than that I dunno maybe the guys from WayForward and other indie devs.

+ Of course the ones you mentioned.

About the THQ thing
Just imagine you play Saints (B)ros. the Fourth and then you go to the LETS PRETEND clothing store (the store that has like mascot, carnival, halloween costumes etc).

There you will find Samus, Link, Mario, Donkey Kong etc costumes and all those hilarious weapons like Fireflower DK-Barrels Master Sword etc. or special moves like FALCON PUNCH!

Drive and fly around with Mario Kart's, F-Zero racers, Airwing whatever. This would have been a great chance for Nintendo to get 1 mature IP plus add a ton of Nintendo to make it have mass appeal.

To bad it didnt happen.

Oh man Im actually sad now....

Seriously though, galaxy 1 and 2 were absolutely fantastic games, but Prime 1 and 2 just that good. Prime 1 and 2 really are some of the best games of all time. Top 10

*Sniffle*

Honestly... imagine they buy SEGA and make Shenmue 3, skies of Arcadia 2, Virtua Fighter 6, Shining Force IV, Shining force X Fire emblem (wich would be a much better cross-over) Panzer Dragoon Saga 2, besides exclusive yakuza, Sonic and Phantasy star.
Possibly a new Nights aswell and they could alternate Mario kart with Sonic all stars to not saturate the series. Same thing with Sonic and mario games alternating. Also the western SEGA could bring games like the total war series to consoles aswell.

It would be perfect, but it would require a hefty investment aswell.

When we say we do not do M&A, there are always exceptions, so let me explain about it. We have never said that we will never do M&A in any situation. Actually, we are not against M&A if Nintendo can absorb the real value of the company. However, in most cases, the value of software developing companies is attached to its people, not the company, which is merely a vessel for its people. So, when we purchase a company, we can purchase the vessel, but we cannot necessarily purchase the contents. Even if we should compete with others to purchase a software company, although we might be able to increase the sheer number of our developers and to gain a short-term result, we do not think it will do good for us in the long run. We have been repeatedly saying that we will not do that kind of M&A.

In the case of Monolith Software, Mr. Sugiura, the president, and Nintendo have a long-term relationship. How Mr. Sugiura thinks is close to how Nintendo thinks. The software Mr. Sugiura would like to create is in line with what Nintendo would like to have for its platform. So, we thought that Nintendo should support this idea, and we decided to take action.

If certain conditions are met, we may do the same thing in the future (M&A). However, we will be very careful and selective, so that we will only partner with people with whom Nintendo can create a long-term working relationship.