1.  Even though I don't think it manage to push any hardware in any significant way, that was not the point at hand.  The point at hand is that the sales of the game is very low IMO judged by not entering in the top 10 of the october NPD list, any information whatsoever by nintendo regarding to the game and some leak about the game selling around 70k in the months of october.  This is all I was arguing.

2.  I don't know much about the process of development but I do have an idea based of how the industry had behave since the HD era.   I do know that most of development costs goes for salary to employees but also know that HD games takes more time and resources than an SD game.  Yeah they  reused assets but you make sound like it's a copy and paste thing and thus making the game much much cheaper.  If you can show me any evidence that shows the huge difference in costs between a game that started from scratch vs. one that reused assets, please enlight me.  Also even though bayo 2 reused asset doesn't mean there weren't any complication expected on the game.  After all Wii U is a new hardware for platinum, add to that optimization.  You  just talk like they were fine because they reused and everything went smoothly witout taking into account complication that came along during development.  I haven't seen a case of profitability for game like bayo at 500k other than indies. 

Look at a game like COD, a game that is always reusing asset for both offline and online, do you think that by now the production cost has been very low just because they manage to decrease some time in the development process. 

" Fire Emblem is on the 3DS and Bayonetta 2 is on the Wii U, therefore Bayonetta 2's budget >>> Fire Emblem"  I know that's not how it works but I also know bayo 2 is an HD game, it require a decent amount of employees to finish a game on schedule.  Although the difference in price between fire emblem just tell me as well that the expected return for a game like bayo 2 is higher than a 3DS game, otherwise they will be priced accordingly.

3.  obviously the decision to fund a game like bayo 2 was determine way before wii U was released.  I'm sure they didn't expected the kind of sales that Wii U is having.  They saw an opportunity there, I cant blame them for doing that, after all it's an investment and sometimes you have to make risk but you can't win it all.  The question that I have for you, why there isn't any game like bayo 2 announced for the system, can we expect more games like that the rest of the gen for Wii U?, very unlikely.  If games like metroid or other nintendo franchises hasn't been announced and have a legacy with their fans, don't expect a game like bayo to be announced for the system. 

1. Sure, but the biggest concern was about profitability, was it not? In that instance we need to consider costs in addition to revenue. Knowing how much Bayonetta 2 sold tells us very little. 

2. I'm pretty sure Bayonetta 2 didn't take that much longer than Fire Emblem: Awakening. So length isn't an issue. One can argue that resources is an issue as well, but Fire Emblem Awakening had Intelligent Systems and Nintendo SPD working on it. I'm sure that is comparable to whichever team Platinum dedicated to Bayonetta. Higher HD costs were because of new engine methods, and assets for ALL games had to improve because of higher standards. Games that already had high level assets will transition easily without much higher costs, because their costs were already high to begin with. 500k * $45/copy revenue = $22 million development cost. Do you think Bayonetta 2 exceeded this? Especially with its minsicule advertisement campaign? The only way I can see Nintendo having taken a loss on this is if Sega asked for very high royalties/IP licensing fees. The difference in price between Bayonetta and Fire Emblem is because of the standards of demand on each platform. In economics class you learn that to at least some extent, price is dependent on supply vs. demand. Not many people would pay $60 for a handheld game, and hence it is priced at $40. 

3. What about a game they know wouldn't sell well like Fatal Frame V? That game will likely sell half of what Bayonetta sold. It is clear to me that there are additional benefits besides short-term profit Nintendo is calculating into their cost-benefit analysis. 

1. First of all, let me clarify that when I said that the game flopped, I mean that IMO it's a flopped by nintendo standards.  That means even if a game sold $100 in revenue and the cost associated to it were $99, it had a profit of $1 which is still a profit not necessarily what nintendo was expecting.  In other words I do believe nintendo expected a resonable amount of profit from it so it's not about meeting profit and we are fine.  There is also opportunity cost where Nintendo would have invested that money in other project that would have generate more profit than bayo was able to.

2.  i don't have a clear picture about the distribution of $60 price when it's a funded game like bayo.  I always thought it was $30 per copy.  Now based on some information I was looking for, I found this http://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649.  I can admit to you that to determine wheter a game is a flopped or not isnt as clear cut as I thought since it vary greatly by games.  Games like jak and daxter had development cost of 10m-15m which I admit never would have thought of that whereas games like gears of war 1 were 10m.  There are also games that you never thought it had a high development costs.

So all we have is speculation about the success or failure of a game and only the publisher behind it know if it was worth it or not.  Let the sequel decide if it ever come along.  Still I apologize If all that I said sounded as a fact which is far from it, it's just my opinion.  At least I can tell you that you changed my opinion to "it's completely a flopped" at to "who knows if the sales were enough for nintendo".

Yeah I don't think Bayonetta 2 could technically be called a "success" but I also don't think we can call it a "failure" either, because I personally believe Nintendo knew what they were getting into with the game. I don't think they expected much from it. There is a reason why third parties didn't pick Bayonetta up and that was because of the large opportunity cost to do so. Nintendo on the otherhand needed/needs as many different games on their platforms as possible, and even though they could spend that same money on another Mario and make a lot more money, in the long run doing that would bite them in the butt. While Bayonetta might not have helped increase sales, it could very well have prevented a decrease. It is nice that we can have a civil conversation on this topic though. :) 

Most games aren't like that. Doesn't mean they shouldn't be made.