And what well-budget profitable game developers are these that constantly churn out maybe 5-6 AAA titles along with another dozen or so solid titles every year for a home console and a handheld?

None of those companies you mentioned come close to annually supporting a console and a handheld with consistent quality titles like Nintendo does.

On the costs of Nintendo's game developments, do you know how much they cost? And even if so, Iwata has already said how expensive it is to develop these days:

The reason for the delayed release of our first-party titles was the fact that completing the games released at the same time as the launch of Wii U required more development resources than expected, so some staff members from development teams working on other titles had to help complete them. In short, the development teams of "Pikmin 3" and other future games were understaffed during that period. We do not simply have one easily identifiable bottleneck in software development. These days it is becoming increasingly challenging to determine the minimum development resources required for customer satisfaction. The point I am trying to get across is that currently it is more challenging to sell packaged software for around $50-$60. On the other hand, we can offer digital games in other formats. It is true that it is becoming increasingly challenging to meet the expectations of consumers who are willing to pay $50-$60 for a game, and it is difficult to break even unless a huge number of units is sold all over the world, so it cannot be denied that software development is becoming more challenging. Among such packaged software, however, the sales of popular games are much larger than in the past. Therefore, if we create more hit games, the software development business can still be very profitable. All games break even if they sell millions of copies worldwide, so we will continue to do our best to develop games which have high sales potential.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/130430qa/03.html

Pikmin 3 was in development from at least 2008 for the Wii and released last year. In comparison, GTA V started development in 2009 and released last year. Destiny, a new IP, started at least 2009 and released this year. How were they rushing it?

Thank you.

"since then they have been surviving off handhelds and Mario/Zelda. "

stopped reading after this. oh, and nintendo never had a monopoly on video games, and neither did sony, or anyone.

If they go third party, expect them to go tablets and mobile gaming where the real money is at.

And the ones they did rush turned out well. Nintendo-developed games like New Super Mario Bros. U, Nintendoland, Lego City Undercover were all well-received on the Wii U before Pikmin 3. On DS, Nintendo came out with 3 Nintendogs games, 2 remakes in Ocarina Of Time and Star Fox, Super Mario 3D Land, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Fire Emblem Awakening, New Super Mario Bros. 2, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Paper Mario: Sticker Star, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, and Tomadachi Life all received fair to great reviews. In that amount of time they also helped publish a hefty amount of games as well.

And even they weren't developing for the Wii U, they would've had to develop them in time for the PS4 or One, which would take even more work since they're not being designed for an in house Nintedo system.

Again, the question is would Nintendo churn out the amount of quality software the same without their hardware? For a company already struggling with the amount of software development teams it needs and budget, my answer is no. You can disagree. I'm done.

I'm going to have to disagree with u hear. If this were the case then the majority of Nintendo ip would have sold significantly better on Wii compared to other Nintendo consoles. With the exception of Mario Kart, no traditional Nintendo series saw massive growth compared to previous installments. I'll give a few examples

Animal Crossing (GC)-3.15m vs Animal Crossing:City Folk (Wii)-4.55m

Kirby's Adventure (NES)-1.75m vs Kirby Super Star (SNES)-1.44m vs Kirby 64 (N64)-1.77m vs Kirby Return to Dreamland (Wii)-1.62m vs Kirby Epic Yarn (Wii)-2.01m

Fire Emblem:Path of Radiance (GC)-0.54m vs Fire Emblem:Radiant Dawn (Wii)-0.48m

Battalion Wars (GC)-0.40m vs Battalion Wars 2 (Wii)-0.33m

Metroid (NES)-2.73m vs Super Metroid (SNES)-1.42m) vs Metroid Prime (GC)-2.82m) vs Metroid Prime 2 (GC)-1.33m vs Metroid Prime 3 (Wii)-1.77m vs Metroid Other M (Wii)-1.27m

Donkey Kong Country (SNES)-9.30m vs DKC2 (SNES)-5.15m vs DKC3 (SNES)-3.51m vs Donkey Kong 64 (N64)-5.27m vs DKC Returns (Wii)-6.20m

Legend of Zelda (NES)-6.51m vs Zelda II (NES)-4.38m vs Link to the Past (SNES)-4.61m vs Ocarina of Time (N64)-7.60m vs Major's Mask (N64)-3.36m vs Wind Waker (GC)-4.60m vs Twilight Princess (Wii)-6.99m vs Skyward Sword (Wii)-3.79m

Paper Mario (N64)-1.38m vs Thousand Year Door (GC)-2.25m vs Super Paper Mario (Wii)-3.66m

Mario 64 (N64)-11.89m vs Mario Sunshine (GC)-6.31m vs Mario Galaxy (Wii)-11.12m vs Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)-7.28m

Super Mario Bros (NES)-40.24m vs Mario 3 (NES)-17.28m vs Mario World (SNES)-20.61m vs New Super Mario (Wii)-27.58m

Smash Bros (N64)-5.55m vs Smash Bros Melee (GC)-7.07m vs Smash Bros Brawl (Wii)-12.32m

Mario Kart (SNES)-8.76m vs Mario Kart 64 (N64)-9.87m vs MK Double Dash (GC)-6.95m vs Mario Kart Wii (Wii)-34.70m

So as u can see, outside of Mario Kart, no Nintendo ip on Wii had massive growth from previous generations. Some grew but nowhere near as much as one would expect from a console that sold 40-80m more than its predecessors. Basically what Nintendo needs is to sell hardware at a profit and just have a large enough install base to sell their ip on and they will be fine.

Nah, stupid and pompous business decisions got them where they are today. Looks like they're just beginning to realise the effects of that.

have fun waiting a very long time then :)


I would never want their games to be on another console. The other 2 systems have less of a reason d'etre than Nintendo because bascially they are just ordinary machines that existed in the same way for 30 years now.  And before this gen had nothing that seperated them form the competition or a gaming PC.  (optional stuff like EyeToy or Kinect or Move etc does not count since its purely optional)


So If anyone should go software only it should be MS and Sony before Nintendo.  

I mean why not have it like this.
You want Sony games buy a $100 Sony USB dongle that is as offer even better security than e.g Cubase  (audio software)
 
Cubase eLicencer

Same with Microsoft and Nintendo. This way I have no problem at all. 

If everyone would make games for PC I would be okay with that.  Sell your own controller and that USB dongle and voila. 
But expecting the only console manufacturer that always had (exception being the Gamecube because of pressure from competition resulting in NO innovation at all.. so much for "competition is good") something that differentiates it from the rest is not plausible.

Sony MS and NIntendo can give recommended PC specs for their games so their games run as intended and everyone that has better hardware can simply play in higher resolution etc.