No, competition is good for everyone and Nintendo have been part of the spine of the industry for almost three decades. Nintendo also have a business practice and ambition that allow others to do their thing in the same market, unlike companies like Apple who want to promote closed systems and markets where consumers are essentially commercially and financially raped and mugged by conglomerate mindsets.

Would it be better for the gamers if Sony became software only?
We would have to buy only one cheaper console to play Halo, Forza, Gears Of War, Killzone and Uncharted, Lost Odyessey, Ni No Kumi, no more timed exlcusives or exclusive DLC content. Think about all of those PSN and XBLA games on a single platform.
Developers wouldn't waste time to make an exactly equivalent port of the same game on two different platforms every time. Think about how many new IPs and games they would create with all those free resources.  Ah, also 3rd parties would have more time to optimize games, to make them look the best.
SCE would have spent less time trying to figure out how to make the Cell look more powerfull than Xenon, maybe The Last Guardian would have been on sale at this time.
No to mention Sony wouldn't bleed money in a price-war against Microsoft, on the contrary they would make a lot of money selling more great games to a wider userbase (I think a lot of X360 owners would go buy Uncharted immediatly id they could).
Think about it ;)

no, nintendo hardware offers a unique gaming experince different then the compitition.

if you have ever played the ds or 3ds you will see that playing 2 screens can be alot of fun. The Wii u just needs those big system selling games that take advantage of the gamepad and make it work.

its that nintendo software that is keeping the hardware alive.

I'd like Sony and Microsoft to get out of the industry and focus on making better televisions and computers.

10 years later and people are still argueing Nintendo should become software only..? Sure, Sega did it and their still alive, but are they as good as they were back in the Genesis days? Thanks to Nintendo the game industry has come this far and has become more mainstream than ever, if there is one company that should never abandon our industry in consoles,handhelds & games it's Nintendo, if it does happen our industry is pretty much doomed and will be taken over by companies such as Apple and Google.

That is actually my secret dream. A console made my Nintendo, Sony and MS. Sony handles the hardware components, Nintendo handles the controller and first party software and Microsoft handles the online networking. Just think what that console would be like.

But alas, I actually agree with you. It won't happen.

No because first party studios put so much money into their games in order to push systems. I've read that Sony makes almost no money on Gran Turismo and same with Microsoft and Forza because the cost of production is so high, but they gain a profit by pushing consoles, which in turn, get people to buy other games (which console manufacterers get royalties from).

Nintendo is the same, except some of their games sell so damn much, they probably make a huge profit too. Still games like XenoBlade and Metroid Prime don't sell that well. If Nintendo stopped making consoles, we would stop seeing games like that, and those are the games which make Nintendo amazing.....so No.

Given that I bought the 3DS pretty much JUST to play Pokemon and don't regret it....I'd probably say yes to some degree lol. Though I'd personally be able to sacrifice everything else in gaming for pokemon if I ever had to choose. So if Nintendo ever made a console and said pokemon is the only thing it'll play, I'd buy that thing in a heartbeat. That is the reason why I made this thread because I KNOW why many hardcore Nintendo fans buy Nintendo consoles just to play a franchise or two. Hence I was saying how nice it would be if we could play everything in one place. But I know it won't happen and a lot of what others have said about competition being a driving factor is actually something that I hadn't considered very strongly. It is quite important.

No, Nintendo should continue to develop hardware. Nintendo has done the vast majority of the hardware innovation in gaming(d-pad, analog stick, motion controls, touchscreen controller). When you leave Microsoft and Sony to do the innovation, you get a touchpad on a controller, and a camera that follows you around. If someone wants to play Nintendo games, they should buy the console instead of hoping they fail and go 3rd party.

Depends on the gamer. It wouldn't affect everyone in exactly the same way. For instance, it would've been great for PS3 owners to have Nintendo games available to them without having to buy a Wii. It would suck for would-be Wii owners to have had to pay twice as much for their console they were only going to use to play Nintendo games anyway.

I think it works fine as it is now.