What you have to consider is the killer app effect. You see it so often where people say "i hate having to buy Nintendo hardware," but that statement implies that they *do* buy it, in a lot of cases. They bitch and they moan about having to drop $300 just for Zelda or Mario Kart or Smash Bros, but they *do* it. Aside from Halo and GT, what first party games do the other guys have that you're saying "i'm buying a PS3 *just* for Killzone. I'm buying a 360 *just* for Forza." It's not there, not to anywhere near the same degree. They sell by building large, diverse first party libraries and the masses of third party games. Nintendo has a power that is mostly extinct from the industry.

But what Nintendo franchises have that power?

Zelda and Donkey Kong don't sell beyond 5m typically, so how are they anymore a system seller than Uncharted and Gears of War (which actually sell more)?

It's Mario and Smash.

I think it's more than Sony/MS are pretty evenly matched. They have the exact same third party games, Halo is bigger than any of Sony's 1st/2nd party games, but Sony sorta makes up for it by having a wider net of games.

If you give one side everything they already have + Mario Kart + a realistic Zelda + Mario 3D + DKC + Metroid + Star Fox ... IMO it totally tips the scales to the point where it's almost unfair.

It's actually kind of a byproduct of the multiplatform era, Nintendo as a singular entity in a situation where their services are being bid upon by only 2 fairly evenly matched sides -- they become even more valuable.

Again, I fail to see how Fable (5m) Gears (6m) Forza (4m) ect don't match DKC, Zelda, Star Fox ... , Metroid ect. Which sell the same (or less!) You can't say it's amazing system selling software just because you think it's amazing.

As a Nintendo fanboy, I suppose I wouldn't die if Nintendo decided to become a co-1st party company with one of the other big 2. That being said, if they did, I agree with the original post that it would basically mean the end of the other company ORRRR it would make the other company do the same thing and then we would finally have a universal console that plays every game on it. The funny part is if that happened it would probably destroy pc gaming because why would anyone want to play pc with a ridiculously smaller amount of exclusives compared to a console that gets to sell all the first party Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony games?

But then again, I doubt Apple would let any of this happen. They would somehow stick their ugly head into it and ruin the fun.

Nintendo's franchises are legacy franchises, most gamers grow up with them at some point. 

As they get older though they find they have to leave Nintendo platforms because they can't get the edgier content they want as they get older and they're not being marketed to night and day like Sony/MS do. 

So they leave. 

Everyone loves Mario IMO. It's like the world's greatest slice of pie. But you're not going to go to restaurant solely for pie if their dinner menu is some what limited. 

Now if you could get a restaurant that had all the things you need from a dinner menu (read: all the things hardcore gamers wants + the marketing) and you could induldge in that killer piece of pie without having to go to two different restaurants ... well that new place that gives you both probably becomes your new favorite restaurant. 

It's what happened with the Wii ... the Wii brough in many lapsed/casuals but also PS3/360 owners who wanted it as their secondary "party" console, but it was also a nice treat to be able to play ... say Mario Kart or 2D Mario again. For a lot of people they hadn't done that since the early 1990s. But unfortunately Nintendo's lost that "hook", the Wii U doesn't have the same draw as the Wii as far as uniquness goes. 

Nintendo won't quit, but if they did, they would go third party. If they didn't go third party they would sell their properties off or lease their properties on a per game basis. Their properties are big names and would make them a lot of money, so Nintendo wouldn't just let those properties die without gaining anything from them.

/thread.

even though i think zelda and mario are amazing, they are not really the huge system sellers they once were, just look at the sales of zelda skysword on npd and the euro chartz they were pathetic and look at mario galaxy 2 sales they not really impressive cause when you consider its first 10 weeks on the market vs say halo 4,

halo 4: 7.5 million first ten weeks

mario galaxy 2: 3.5 million first ten weeks

The first ten weeks a very important it show how important that franshise is, that they willing to pay full price for it and will buy a console for that game, not just buy it a bargain bin or bundle.

Pretty sure a lot of people said the same about Sega.

Anyway, it wouldn't happen before a gen or two in the worst case scenario.

I doubt there will be traditional consoles as we know it 12 years from now. If they are they'll be like Blu-Ray players are today -- on their way out.