You know that Capcom is in trouble when even Sega makes more money than it.

Right now they would make more profits being 3rd party than being a "2nd console". As a 2nd console, people are having to spend $300 of their disposable income just on the hardare which Nintendo is just passing on to chip makers and manufacturing. That's $300 less disposable income to spend on games.

This "2nd console" is it not only for game nerds? An ordinary family probably only buys one console (have not looked up Nielsen data).

If you have small children the cheapest console will do just good.

Square Enix has 3,242 employees and has a revenue of ¥127,896 million as of March 31, 2012
Take Two has 2,240 employees and has a revenue of $2,351 million as of 2013.

Going 3rd party doesn't mean the quality of their games has to change.

It would just be weird to see them go 3rd party at first. Sega going 3rd party didn't kill my interest in their games... but their games did get shitty in the 7th gen for some reason.

And Sony lost 1.2 billion USD last fiscal year and they're not in trouble? Lol whatever bro.The way things are going Nintendo will be the last one standing when the dust settles as consoles were never a core part of MS's business and Sony is losing money hand over fist because everyone buys the cheap Chinese TVs now.

No it wouldn't. Going third party doesn't mean not making hardware anymore.

3 ways Nintendo can go third party while still having new releases on their hardware

1) Old classics on ios, android ect. Pokemon blue on ipad is not going to stop anyone that wants a 3DS from getting one. In fact it reopens the market considerably, for those wanting the newest and latest pokemon for instance.
2) Release their less huge/blockbuster games on XB1/PS4/PC. Few WiiU games seem to be designed around the gamepad, so porting would be fine (that said Nintendo would need to bring in people that know how as it's brand new architecture) but for instance DK Tropical Freeze has pretty much exhausted its hardware selling power now (if it had any) so if they could sell 500k - 1m more copies across XB1 and PS4 that would be huge.
3) Put their IP up for auction, highest bidder. What I mean by this is, if say MS wanted Super Mario 3DLand, not only could Nintendo demand a fee for it, but get a higher cut of royalties.

With the 3DS they're better off keeping that stuff exclusive and porting the old stuff to mobile, but WiiU is hardly going to sell any worse than it currently is so they don't have much to lose porting off 2 year old games.

You should look up revenue, cause you don't seem to understand what it actually is.

Wow.... you're not serious are you? 

Revenue =/= Profit

Profit = revenue - expenses

So if Ninty drop the console buissnes they make less revenue but also have less expenses (and considering the wiiu is or was sold at a loss the drop in expenses would be bigger than the revenue loss so profits would grow (or at least the retability would)).

i say this in every thread about finances and stuff but people need to get a clue about accounting before they go posting stupid stuff.

Being third party in the industry in this climate just seems like a fool's errand. Especially a Japanese third party company. Name one with that has been around as long as Nintendo that is doing well/ way better than Nintendo. People, that is a last ditch option, a hail mary, not an audible.