Nintendo will always be in the console business until Iwata says other wise which will not be soon

The wii u wouldn't exist. Didn't someone from Nintendo say if the wii wasn't successful they would leave the console business

Well, if the WiiU has n64 level of success, I doubt they will be going out of the console business cause they only really have two things that make them the most amount of money which are consoles + games and handhelds + games... So going out of the console market would leave them to have only one primary source of income which are handhelds and having only one primary source of income is veryyyyyy bad for any large company!

The GBA was a huge success so, I am scratching my head there lol. But I don't think so. Every handheld and console they've released has made them money. You don't got out of business by making lots of money.

I modest success is still a success. No, it would take several colossal failures in a row to sink the S.S. Nintendo.

You mean Wii?
I think Nintendo would have still survived even if the Wii and DS weren't as successful.

If the Wii U was a modest success I think we would all be holding hands and skipping on rainbows.

Edit: Darn, changed the title.

Moderate success is still that. I think the 3DS has done very well though as a "moderate success" where the Wii U fits that description to the tee. Although, it's gonna make it's money. I think Nintendo just needs to make some key investments in their hardware, games, and perhaps expand into the phone/tablet gaming market if they get close to red for some reason.

If the Wii failed, that would had marked the end of their home consoles, and if by modest success for the DS, you mean around 50-70 million, it would had probably not been that good either. Yamauchi said it himself, that if the Ds failed they would sink in hell, but if it was a success they would rise into the heavens. So anything aside from a pure success of the DS would had caused Ninty to sink in hell.

Since you changed the title... I will do a second response! I would say it will be dependent on the profit they made with the wii! Like, you really don't need to win a "console war" to make money, you just need to be profitable! So if they had "modest" sales and they made enough of a profit, then yes, they would continue to chug along but if they didnt make any profit, then they would be out of the console market