I guess if their hardware continues to go down, even worse than the Wii U, then they'd have to step down. That is if they keep messing up. This was just one failure after a massive success of the Wii and DS.

Yes profits is most important but for example their is no way they would be able to remain profitable with a console selling 5 million and handheld selling another 10 million over the course of 5 years. Their 1st party franchises wouldn't have a big enough userbase to sell big numbers on and they wouldn't be making a large enough profit to run the company without doing massive downsizing in which case they wouldn't be able to pump out enough games.

For their next generation they should aim for 100m home consoles +handleds combined, if they fail and end up with 80m it's still ok but they shouldn't aim for anything less.

They have money to last for another hundred years while taking losses. I'd say a 50m handheld userbase with a 20m home userbase should be way more than enough.

it's not really a number-----just marketshare. 10%.

45-50 million handheld
Home Console - gravy

+ Yearly Profit. Even if it's a modest profit.

They kinda are already irrelevant in the console market outside of their core fanbase of about 12-18 million, so they're basically already at "rock bottom" when it comes to consoles. They don't have really any sway on the broader console business at all. 

All they need is 1 for me screw the rest of Nintendo fans haha.

Jokes aside pretty much been answered whatever they fell comfortable with that returns them enough profit.

Anything below 30 million in the console market makes them irrevelant no matter how people spin it. In the handheld market, I'd say atleast a minimum of 40 million units sold.

People have to remember that more hardware sold equals more software sales and bigger brand awareness. It's not a coincidence that 95% of the nintendo franchises peaked during the wii and ds generation. By having failures like the wiiU, it decreases their brand awareness and loses them many potential young consumers that could become life long fans.

If they do in fact go with unified devices that share a library than 50 million should be a large enough number to sell their ip on and post healthy profits as long as they dont sell the hardware ar a loss.

3DS has sold about 50 million and Nintendo hasn't had any problem selling 1st party software on it. Even 3rd parties who put the effort into it have seem strong sales as well.

So Wait...... . Let's say Nintendo makes $8 of every console sold ( Including transport and everything ) but it only sells 100 consoles is it truly relevant.