First of all, this is not a thread saying Nintendo will or should go third party. This is a thread to shed some light on what would change, and the goods and the bads of Nintendo going third party. I would also like to note that this is strictly about them going 3rd party on home consoles, but they would/should keep on making their own handhelds.

I'm basing it off this. As you can see, the publisher gets most of the revenue, while the platform owner gets a little bit in royalty. Currently, both of these are Nintendo, so Nintendo currently get 27+7 aka 34 dollars per 1st party 60 dollar video game sold.

However, if Nintendo we're to go third party, they would lose out on those extra 7 dollars per copy. To recoup that loss in revenue, they would have to sell 26% more copies (at the same price of course, 60 dollars). So If DKC TF sells 1 million on the Wii U, it would have to sell 1.26 million on XBO/PS4/PC to make the same amount of cash. Personally I think Nintendo will get a bigger increase in software sales than just 26%, but that's just speculation.

That's not the only thing Nintendo would lose though, as they would also lose 3rd party royalties. As I'm sure you realize though, those royalties are not likely to be too substantial for them (on the Wii U).  32.3 million (give or take) of the 45.64 million software units sold on the Wii U are first party games, meaning that a whopping 71% of the games sold on the Wii U are Nintendo published. If we assume the remaining 29%, or 13.34 million games sold on the Wii U cost on average 40$ (seems fair, right?) and that it follows the same ratio of the above chart (7/60 -> 12%), that that should be about 62.4 million in revenue for Nintendo, just from third party royalties so far this gen.

Back to the point, the Wii U's 1st to third party ratio is ~2.4, meaning that for every third party game sold on their syatem, 2.4 first party games are sold. I'll try and translate that into revenue:

1 third party game @40 (remember we assumed that was the average price?) = 4.8 dollars in revenue for Nintendo.

2.4 1st party games @60 = 81.6 dollars in revenue for Nintendo

Total=86.4 dollars in revenue for Nintendo, on average per 2.4 first party games sold.

To recoup that as a third party publisher, the would have to sell 81.6/27, or roughly 3 games, instead of 2.4 games. And 3/2.4 is 1.25, meaning that they would have to sell 25% more. Now you may remember that when I said even when ignoring third party royalties, they would have to sell 26% more, but here's why it's now 25%:

Third party royalties on the Wii U are so insignificant that my roundings from 3 to 3.02222.... and such have nullified it out. But to be kind, instead of 26% more, let's say 30% more, to be on the safe side.

Aka 1 million on Wii U = 1.3 million on XBO/PS4/PC

A graph I found to show that 3rd party royalties don't matter too much for Nintendo compared to their own software (notice how low the green line is, even in the Wii days. And this is including handhelds, which I'm saying they shouldn't drop.):

Then there are a few more things they'd lose out on, namely profits from hardware and accesories. This one is kinda iffy, because it's hard to predict what type of hardware Nintendo will go for and such, but it's also a sort of "risk vs reward" thing when it comes to hardware. First of all the research and development associated with launching a new platform costs money, which they wouldn't have to spend if they didn't make their own (home) consoles. They also wouldn't have to maintain the online infrastructure for the platform, but unfortunately I have nothing to go on to give any remotely precise numbers. It's risk vs reward, because on one side, you could make a decent chunk of money from hardware, let's say 30 dollars per game console, which if they sell 30 million consoles next gen means 90 million. All of this has to be recouperated through saving money and selling more games of course. They could also still make accesories, although they would no doubt sell as well as they do on their own systems. But the main thing is that they will no longer have to risk that a game is being held back (sales wise) from a platform selling below par. Amiibos would still sell great, and is a part of their business that would benefit greatly from Nintendo going third party, because Amiibos would certainly sell better if they did this, and Nintendo won't have to share the profit from Amiibos with anyone.

But there's also other ways you make money on as a third party publisher. There are marketing deals, which can benefit Nintendo in both that they will get help in their game marketing (which, let's be honest, has been lacking this gen) and they'll also get the marketing for free, in fact, they'll probably even be paid by both Sony and MS for exclusive marketing rights.

They also won't have to go through a lot of expensive R&D each time they develop a new system.

So, after reading this, what do you think? Would it be beneficial for Nintendo to go multiplat on the home console scene? Would they sell at least 30% more copies if they released on more platforms?

Wouldn't the recoup be substancially more damaging to Nintendo than the profit they already make?

You're assuming expensive R&D doesn't pay off when compared to be a merely publisher, but you can't back this claim with nothing substancial. If anything, R&D on handhelds prove to be a very lucrative bussiness for Nintendo.

Then we have the 30% increase ratio in profit-per-sale software, on which you could argue a Mario game definitively would sell 30% more in other platforms. But what about things like Pikmin? Or F-Zero? Things would be too unpredictable to just simply take the risk.

Sure, I don't think Nintendo loses anything by becoming a third-party developer, and I'd actually embrace it, but they're in a confortable zone right now and they have no inmediate need to ever think about that.

A retailer does not make ANYWHERE NEAR 15$. I can tell you that right now.

Other than that a good article, and I can not decide on that issue. I kinda think they should since they it would change them for the better imo (atleast on home consoles)

The simple fact is, is that if Nintendo started to put their games on to the other two consoles, they would sell millions more copies of every game they put out. Take Mario Kart for instance, sold over 4 million on the Wii U. The current install base of over 30 million PS4s and Xbox, youd be looking at what, 5 million sales surely? Even more?

Nintendo seems to think they have another Wii in them. But they do not. But in all honesty they would be fine with 30ish million consoles

I think at some point they will go third party.  Unless they decide to compete hardware wise with Sony and MS (which would make the platform have more 3rd party titles on) they will just fade into obscurity at least where home consoles are concerned.  Handhelds is a different kettle of fish however.  

So for me they either go two ways:

They put all of their efforts into the handheld market and pull out of consoles altogether 

They keep the handheld market as it is and develop console games for other hardware.  

I don't want them to become another Sega, but Nintendo are rapidly becoming archaic in their approach to everything. 

Expensive R&D (Research & Development) is a neccesity to make a video game platform. I'd wager the Wii U cost maybe 30 million $ to design etc (at the very least!), so that's 30 million they'd save by being a third party publisher. Like I said in the OP, they deffinitely should continue making handhelds, so no issue there.

My logic for software sales is that none of the fans that currently buy Nintendo games would stop buying Nintendo games just because they go third party, so no games would sell less than if they were on a Nintendo home console, but some games have potential to pull huge numbers as multiplats, such as, as you say Mario, Zelda, Metroid (This could turn into a huge franchise if it was multiplat and marketed right), Mario Kart, SSB, heck, Xenoblade Chronicles X would also benefit greatly from releasing on the PS4 imo.

Nintendo would be fine with a Wii U like console without the gamepad. A cheap "no nonsense console" from Nintendo would sell 30 million easily and would make Nintendo profits.

Nintendo is not in direct competition with MS and Sony. They are doing their own thing and once they realize they need to be cheap to succeed they will succeed. 300$ for a Wii U when you can get an Xbox One for 350$...... Very few people are going to take the Wii U....  Even better the PS4 TLOU:R, and Bloodborne bundle for 400$ :)

What about the money that Nintendo makes with hardware? I'm aware that they may not be winning with Wii U, but they may be conscious that a profitable hardware can make much more money than just selling games.

Of course there's nothing wrong with being a 3rd party developer, but Nintendo doesn't need to conside that option yet.