So what would stop a Nintendo 1st party game from selling 10 million on a different platform? *crickets*. You falsely frame this as an either/or when it's not.

Nintendo would still have portable hardware, they'd just move maybe the 6-7 console IP they have that really sell anything that noteworthy to a more mainstream platform rather than being stuck on a home console that doesn't sell much. For that I'm sure Sony would likely offer them a fairly nice sweetheart deal and Nintendo could insist on their support for their handheld as a bonus.

If 80% of your own buyers purhcase the handheld unit in a "unifed platform" rather than the home console, a home console that has little/no developer support then really are you even in competetion with something like a PS4/PS5? No, you are basically a handheld company, so I don't see the harm in that scenario in offering some IP to Playstation's massive audience if you can get a favorable deal in return.

Of course licensing fees are the main motivator to have a platform as well, why wouldn't EA just make their own console for example? Why pay someone else $8 of every game you make for no reason?

Receiving royalty fees from developers is what offsets the headaches and risks of making a platform (chipset investement, marketing, manufacturing, etc. etc.). That's the whole point of why Nintendo made the Famicom/NES with its licensing fee model for devs, which is the standard business model that exists to this day in the business.

Between 5-7% of their total revenue?  That's pretty sweet, actually.  Considering it's a stream with almost no overhead, that should translate to a much higher percentage of their total profit.

@trainwreck, you generalized, wii u isn't being sold at a loss since 2014, same for 3ds since 2012... 3D and tablet were very expensive.... 3DS because of the 3D was priced at 249$ in the beginning, what an ''attractive'' price for a handheld console, slow sales were expected, I can't fathom what Nintendo was thinking!
The urgent price drop of 80$ made 3ds to be sold at loss albeit sales skyrocketed, anyway this was reversed, 3ds xl with same manufacturing cost with 3ds, was priced at 199$ and sold very well...
Perhaps Nintendo shouldn't have slashed the price so much!
For the wii u, tI talked previously about its coslly tablet controller...

Nintendo has a long history of being profitable, just three years of losses in 128 years... And don't forget ds and especially wii! they profited so much on them so that they can afford NX to be a bust ( and even more flops), NX would lose 500m at most! No need to worry yet, or rather why worrying? As far as I know you're not a Nintendo fan/gamer or caring about Nintendo in general, for the indursty's sake or the fanbase! Am I wrong?

P.s Better be profitable with 20m sales instead of losing 3-5 billion with 80m sales...

Same as all multiplat devs... if there is money to be made they will try and get it... but we always have those conspiracy talks about people wanting to screw Nintendo on support just for the fun of it.

Since NX will be dead on arrival, EA won't make a single game. I stopped buying EA games when they announced that they will no longer make Wii U games and I haven't bought a single EA game since then and won't buy any EA game in the future. For me EA is dead.

I am not a big fan of them either, I stopped buying their games long before they left WII U, but their games sell and they can push systems, the way I see it Nintendo has software gaps not only hardware or online technology

EA helped the X1 with titanfall when it cameout as an exclusive, these online shooters WII U lacked, and it was before Dysteny, Microsoft and Sony didn't achieve memberships and subscribtions out of the blue, Even if they where forced to sell their consoles with a loss they still got the XBox live & PSN money to back them up as they expand a market share

3RD parties can fill that gap, I do put Nintendo machine above the others and I buy most software on their platforms but they still need 3rd parties, they can't cover all areas alone

Maybe Nintendo should had put more effort into Left Field.

Here's the simpliest solution that would make gamers and the game publishers/devs happy.

Nintendo could just pay for the ports of popular 3rd party games or games that might fit their platform until it's user base gets big enough or until 3rd party devs are comfortable with porting games on their own to NX.  It would show to everyone that Nintendo is willing to seriously invest in it's own hardware.

i can understand 3rd party devs and publishers reluctance with the NX. it's not a safe bet or investment. Nintendo home consoles are known for not selling that well. 

To be blunt if NX lacks 3rd party i'll get it when its at a pretty low price

It's way too soon to assume that when we have no idea what the NX is yet.