The teams that make the games are independant of the big studios or independant from their corporate structures. It's not about who publishes the game.  Sometimes they make deals with them to publish, sometimes they don't. Needing money doesn't make someone depended. The indies can make deals with anyone, work on any hardware. first party are not independant.  If your paycheck says Nintendo on it you are hardly independant from Nintendo. 

LOL at the crowd funding. Asking for money in the way they want to without even needing to make a deal with a publisher that would take a cut or require things like being exclusive is dependant? Because you say most wouldn't?

Out of curiosity what term would you come for the makers of these games?

I think Nintendo will sell more hardware. Some of the predictions in here seem a bit crazy though. 3ds> all PlayStation hardware combined is very unlikely.

Also are there any ps2s still selling out there?

Its gonna be close but I see Sony winning. Ps4 is gonna sell like hotcakes, ps3 is still selling well and the vita tv and god eater 2 should boost vita sales in Japan. Zelda and 3d world may not boost 3ds/wiiu sales a lot considering their both launching on the same day as the xbox one and ps4 sales will still be very strong.

They're devs just like any other. They're just a smaller studio rather than a larger one.

Some people call these smaller studios indies because they are not with another company, that they're independent that way.  Even though they're depending on these sources for funding etc, they're not a part of that company.  So then what about developers like Insomniac Games?  They're a larger budget developer that is independent from any publisher, but you don't see people calling them an indie dev.  They're no different from what people call most indie devs.  So the indie fanbase has the term that they use and they're inconsistent with it, so why use the term?

So basically to the indie fanbase, it doesn't mean they're dependent or independent, it doesn't mean they're independant from a publisher.  It's just a word thrown out for any budget dev is what it seems.   

Since most indie devs push out crap, we should just call them dime a dozen devs.  What did Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft call them before  the term indie started being thrown around?  Garage develeopers?  I'd agree.  Because what you pay the majority of the time is far less than what you get.  I remember indie devs didn't like being called that and that might be where the term indie devs came from? 

monster hunter made japan 3ds sales reach 340k. picture that in a worldwide fashion + 2ds + momentum carrying over the holidays and zelda. 

If 3ds could sell 4M on last december, with paper mario being it's biggest holiday title, it can certainly far surpass it this year with a cheaper model, pokemon, zelda... It doesn't even need to scratch ds best holiday numbers to reach my prediction.

It will be Nintendo, I can't say how big the gap will be though it will depend on how well the PS4 launch and post-launch goes.

6M was last year holidays for 3ds (I know it was 4M for december, don't remember november). with everything it has going this holiday season, it will do much more than that.

I really don't know what you expect from Pokemon but just so you know, in the last 7 years the highest percentage boost to console sales thanks to a Pokemon release was 119% in Japan and about 35% in the west for the first week (aka the strongest week). I do think the 2DS and new Pokemon game combo was a smart move by Nintendo which means that I also expect a bigger boost this time around, but even that won't mean that Pokemon will suddenly triple the 3DS numbers around the whole world.

So no, I don't see Pokemon and the 2DS (and Zelda) moving 11 mio 3DS this holiday.

you forgot the holiday itself.

Nintendo.

Wii U + Wii > PSV + PSP

3DS will be over 15 million, DS will be around a million, PS3 will be under 12 million. PS4 would have to sell well over 4 million to hope to tie it up, and that doesn't align with Sony's shipment forcasts.