of the 3 console makers, nintendo is the only one completely dependent on gaming.  sony and MS are obviously gigantic, and as they pursue their own home hub strategy, nintendo seems to have found a crack in their armour and surprised everyone with the wii, and the wide appeal of the DS.

iwata has done a tremendous jobs as CEO, his vision such as expanding the target audience and focus on fun is reflected in the success of DS and the Wii.

the marketplace changes fast, other companies will innovate and it's far from a sure bet that nintendo's fortune will ride so high a couple of years from now.  though it has remain profitable the past couple of decades, nintendo HAS been on a roller coaster ride and certainly that is not something they want.

with its stock price at a multi year high (market value $40 bln) and a big cash stash ($7 bln), perhaps it's time for nintendo to hedge against that risk.  if you're the CEO of nintendo, what would be your vision and what would you do?  will you venture outside of gaming, or solidify your position as the #1 gaming company in the world? 

nintendo is already courting 3rd party M rated titles.

i personally would like to see nintendo enter some kind of alliance with disney, which is expanding its interactive entertainment division (i.e. gaming) and would welcome nintendo's expertise in the area, and nintendo will benefit from the disney's huge presence in family oriented entertainment.  movie games have in general sucked; i'm sure miyamoto has some ideas that he is eager to try out, and disney (which has acquired pixar) franchises would be perfect.  it'll probably truly usher in the era of more than just movie-games, but true "interactive" entertainment.

and now that steve jobs is disney's largest shareholder, it would also have interesting implications with apple's home hub strategy.

in the really, really, really long fun, i find it hard to see nintendo as an individual entity, unless it becomes a sega and only publishes titles, which would be a huge step down.  so when it still has the reputation of being one of the more innovative companies in the world, better start making alliances or even enter mergers.  buying up small movie studios would also be interesting.  dreamworks animation (market cap $3 bln) would be a very interesting proposal, though nothing beats the disney/nintendo tandem.

 No. NIntendodoesn't care about any of that stuff. And Apple sucks and I hope they die. Overpriced pieces of shit.

Apple has one of the worst enviromental records of any company in America, look it up. Also they sue anybody who dares leak info about them, disgusting. 

please people, stay civil, and make constructive comments.

Just to add to the troll atmosphere already so rampant, and to reinforce that I am the master troll here.

BLARRARG YAAR MUUUHH!!!! WIII SUCK, NINTENDO SUCK!!! BLARRR!!! MICROSOFT MONOPOLY MUUUHHIHIHIHI.

Ok seriously tho. If I was the president of Nintendo, I would create a room the size of a basketball court indoors, with no windows, and a glass celing with lights above that, and a regular comercial metal roof over that, Litter the floor about 6inches high with wadded up 100$ bills, and then turn on some MASSSSSIVE fans, and swim in the money. 

Id sale my shares and buy a small island, viva la Hus land!

This is actually a really good INITIAL thread idea and I would like to continue the discussion because I have thought about this myself many times.

Sony and Microsoft were in much better positions to oust Nintendo, and unfortunately they didn't take advantage of it while they could.  Nintendo were flailing, while still making profit, they were dropping slowly and couldn't maintain that during the GameCube days.  

This is where I come to start thinking about the difference in direction and the difference in goals from each of the companies... Nintendo does extremely well to stay in the market like this.  Sony and Microsoft both seem to bleed money in their gaming divisions yet Nintendo only has their gaming division to make money from.  I think it's admirable that Nintendo continue to make money in a market that Sony and Microsoft struggle so hard to make money in.

That said, is it really fair for Nintendo to have to compete with these two behemoths? Nintendo would have ran over Microsoft with a freight truck if Microsoft only had their gaming division, but that really means nothing.

Should this be something that Nintendo may seek to do? Move their operations to another form of media and entertainment? Can they innovate on a different front for consumers? Who knows but I wouldn't want to be the CEO of Nintendo that's for sure, Iwata is a good man!

If they haven't started this project already, I would look for a way to sell the Gameboy library on cell phones. That could be billions in free money right there.

Nintendo should simply continue to foster good third party relationships... They should continue focusing on establishing new killer app IP as they have done brilliantly with DS and to a lesser extent Wii... They should continue expanding both their internal development and the amount of "2nd party" games they publish... And they should keep their focus on selling videogame hardware and software, not much else... Stick to what you know! If they constantly keep their focus on expanding the market, the world is theirs...

And they certainly should keep their independance. I can't imagine what would happen if they got entangled with other companies or even merged with other companies... It would be betraying the style that got them to where they are...

Well, in line with Kwaad there, I would fill up a giant building with gold coins and swim in them Scrooge McDuck style until I either got tired or realized the real world isn't a cartoon and you can't really swim in a sea of coins.

After that I don't know.  On the one hand Nintendo has a business model that makes a good amount of money in the bad times and enormous sums of money in the good so why change.  On the other they've built huge reserves of cash that never stop growing since they are basically perma-profitable so the urge to splurge would be there.

I'd say there are three options, which aren't necessarily exclusive of each other.  First, the most conservative, is to buy up promising third party devs.  Nintendo could use this to shore up 3rd party exclusives, especially key ones that Nintendo's 1st and 2nd party may lack.  Second, spend money to massively increase production of the DS and Wii and drop the price this Christmas to $80-100 and $150-200.  Lastly, and most risky, Nintendo oculd form an alliance with Apple and Disney.  I don't know how but they could use the alliance to cross link the Ipod, Iphone, Apple TV, Itunes, Disney movies and IP's with the DS (or DS Advance), Wii (or Super Wii), and Nintendo IP's.  It may not work but if it did it could in one fellswoop destroy the entire basis of the media box that MS and Sony are giving as the reason d'etre for the 360, PS3, and PSP.

"What if...you're the CEO of Nintendo?"

You stand aside Miyamoto.

Grab a DS

Or a Wii

and say....

Hahahahahaha!

John Lucas