I find the whole point and angle of this thread a little confusing.

Firstly, Nintendo makes more money than the gaming divisions of Sony and Microsoft combined so they won't be going anywhere any time soon.

Secondly, as others have said, no gaming company or indeed gaming itself is THAT important and everything can and usually will be replaced eventually. In a hypothetical situation in which Nintendo went bankrupt (which will never happen on their cash reserves alone) then all of their employees would obviously find work elsewhere so their games would live on in other forms.

If you are trying to somehow objectively quantify the contribution and importance of gaming companies in the industry then it is very hard not to place Nintendo as number one by any metric that you choose. They have sold far more games than any other publisher, won more awards, dominate every "best ever" poll and are more financially successful than all other publishers by a long long way. Those are hard facts.

There aren't any other forms of entertainment I can think of that have been dominated so much by one company for so long. On that basis, I would personally say yes, they are THAT important.

I find the whole point and angle of this thread a little confusing.

Firstly, Nintendo makes more money than the gaming divisions of Sony and Microsoft combined so they won't be going anywhere any time soon.

Secondly, as others have said, no gaming company or indeed gaming itself is THAT important and everything can and usually will be replaced eventually. In a hypothetical situation in which Nintendo went bankrupt (which will never happen on their cash reserves alone) then all of their employees would obviously find work elsewhere so their games would live on in other forms.

If you are trying to somehow objectively quantify the contribution and importance of gaming companies in the industry then it is very hard not to place Nintendo as number one by any metric that you choose. They have sold far more games than any other publisher, won more awards, dominate every "best ever" poll and are more financially successful than all other publishers by a long long way. Those are hard facts.

There aren't any other forms of entertainment I can think of that have been dominated so much by one company for so long. On that basis, I would personally say yes, they are THAT important.

I'll give you diversity on "AAA" titleseven though I'm not 100% sold that that would be the case absolutely. I mean FF still far outsells any JRPG but for some reason, they still make Tales games (Is tales not AAA)? I guess they're not bleeding cash enough? AAA isn't everything you know...and what's AAA is kind of difficult to determine sometimes. Is the AAA moniker given to big budget games or games over 90% on metacritic? That definition is crucial for me to understand your prediction.

Not to piggyback or anything, but this pretty much summed up my thoughts on the subject. Especially your 2nd point. I don't think any of the big gaming publishers are absolutely irreplacable, but that doesn't mean Nintendo isn't one of the most prominent.

Also, reading some of the comments here, there seems to be a lot of stereotyping the entire fandom by a vocal minority. Can we...not do that? Every fandom's got these, I don't know why only Nintendo warrants these types of comments.

For me, everything takes a back seat to fun. Maturity in games is like CGI in movies; it can be a good addition, but also a drawback, and isn't always necessary.

Not who you asked, but my opinion? Capcom, SNK, Namco, Sega, Atlus, and now Platinum are all companies I'd all put well over Nintendo in a heartbeat.

Obviously some of those like Capcom have seen far, FAR better days... Or really, I'd argue all but Atlus and Platinum have, but if you ask me... Nintendo never truly recovered from the commercial failure of the Gamecube. While their profitability may have gone up, their quality and general value proposition has absolutely plummeted. Perhaps as a direct result.

There could still be a video game industry if every publisher apart from EA went bankrupt - it just wouldn't be a very good one!

As others have said (and as I have backed up by various objective measures), there would be a much bigger hole in the industry if Nintendo left than for any other gaming company.

I think the point here is that Nintendo is, by any measure you wish to use, the MOST important gaming company of every decade of the last 30 years but I don't think anybody in their right mind would argue that the industry couldn't exist without them but it would be an enormous loss for a lot of people.

My question was not opinion based. I actually wanted to know if some other company has actually achieved a greater status than Nintendo in the gaming industry. They're also not just one company in the land of many... This is not an opinion, but a fact based on many different factors.