I think the OP lacks the understanding that a video game console maker, a company of that size, generally HAS TO produce games that may or may not be profitable to succeed. Nintendo probably won't profit much or at all on the extremely edgy and adult games (Devils Third coughhhh) that they release to the system, since they cater to totally the wrong audience. But they may draw in certain customers to purchase the console who otherwise might not have and end up making more when that said customer ends up trying Mario for the first time and becomes a permanent customer

I think of it as similar to maybe the PS4 and family games. There are certain games that I seriously doubt will sell particularly high and end up depressing when relating the copies sold vs. development costs. That's just how the show goes though, its sort of like the old saying 'you win all the battles but lose the war' but reversed. Its better you lose money on Bayonetta 2 but attract a new customer base to your system than not attract them at all

How many times have we heard things like "Nintendo should dip into their war chest, and start funding mature games". Dont analyse things too much, be thankful Nintendo chose to fund this amazing game.

It probably won't. Looks like it's around 500K at the moment. To be honest, that's probably the best they can expect.
If that gets up to about 700K, I imagine that'll count as a success. Although I don't know what the budget was.

500k might be a stretch honestly. According to the NPD leak on neogaf, the game is heavily overtracked in the US, they have it around 100k at the end of November.

One niche game alone isn't going to move systems or set sales records. Look at the original and the much bigger install base it had to achieve the sales it did. I don't think Nintendo cares too much that it will profit or not, hence why they are working on collaborative projects with smaller 3rd parties still.

They need to have at least 10 unique experiences that will make someone who normally do not buy a Nintendo system to want to buy a Nintendo system as their secondary. The more hardware out there the more likely these smaller games will be to hit one million sales. Hell atm some of Nintendo's first party is barely over 1 million and I would argue their sales are poor.

The problem is as the rate they are releasing these games is so slow that it is going to fizz out any want for Bayonetta 2 for anyone to who hasn't got it already to care.

Also they really fucked up when they did the first print run edition. That looked so nice. They should have made more of it to attract more sales.

It most definitely did not pass 1 million with digital

It never will. It will always remain a flop.

Because that is impossible unless like 60-70% of sales are digital. We have the game very overtracked. Japan is accurate because we have Media Create/Famitsu numbers to back it up but according to NPD (which is more accurate than VGC) it's less than 100k in Oct+Nov. We have it at 120k first week alone in the US and over 200k at the end of Nov so we have US sales over double what they really are. Also considering that pretty much every Wii U game performs better in the US than Europe, I'm inclined to believe the game is overtracked there as well. The game has sold much closer to 300k than the 450k we have it at currently.

It won't. It's still overtracked in the US a good margin (150k+ last time I checked). and sales will pitter out to next to nothing globally early next year.

Bayonetta seems like a great franchise but it seems it doesn't matter what system it's on, it'll always be niche.

The problem with the charts are they show only digital copies unless i'm wrong. If it is the case, we won't get a full picture until Nintendo release how many digital copies they sold.