I don't know much about actual game development (let alone producing games from first party studios) so I don't know how much cheaper it would be to make Uncharted 4 compared to Pokemon Sun and Moon. I'd assume games in general get more expensive to make as hardware becomes more powerful. HD development gave Nintendo trouble this gen due to higher costs and production time, thus the delays and all that fun stuff.

Power can also lower costs though; a game like Breath of the Wild, for instance, would have been a lot easier and therefore cheaper to make if they didn't have to fight so hard against the limits of the hardware. Optimization takes time, and time is money.

Man, reading through this thread was a truly teeth grinding experience from some people's lack of research and knowledge of games on different systems to the unrealistic expectations that a company should take to have a success story. It's 10 fucking days away guys, let's just wait and start a new thread after that lol.

Depends entirely on the attach rates.  If you have fewer combined units but more sales per unit then it's hunky dory.  That remains to be seen.

The NES and SNES were competitive with the competition during their reign.
The Nintendo 64 was the most powerful console of it's generation.
The Gamecube was right in the middle, but was also competitive with the Original Xbox when programmed it's way, in-fact the Gamecube could do almost everything the original Xbox can, despite it's fixed-function hardware.

The Wii and Wii U were not competitive with the competition. The Wii's life was short, it was ignored by multiplats. And the Wii U bombed.

To a point. Yes. Better graphics *can* make game development more expensive.
But some graphics effects do the opposite and make development faster, simpler and cheaper.

High-Definition or "HD" for example doesn't actually increase development costs at all. It's just the resolution the game renders at, Nintendo was inaccurate in the way they worded it, most probably trying to dumb down their rhetoric for non-tech orientated people.

When a developer is forced to push the hardware to realise their vision, costs can skyrocket, especially if they are building the game to the metal or low-level application programming interface.
Also having non-standard hardware like PowerPC can also increase costs, which is why Developers were so happy when the Xbox One and Playstation 4 launched with x86.

The Wii U suffered from a multiple of those cost issues, it was PowerPC, it was low-powered so developers needed more R&D time to get the most out of it... You saw the effect with some Wii U ports that were lazily/cheaply done and the erratic performance they had right? Wouldn't have been an issue if the hardware was faster or they spent more time and money on optimizing the games.

@bolded hence the "since N64" part

N64 was powerful sure, but it used cartridges which is why 3rd parties left in droves and to this day havent fully come back. There are other errors you can make with hardware besides being weaker N64 proves that.

GC and Xbox both still bombed. I liked GC but I think the way the hardware was designed turned some people off. A purple lunch box is not something you want your product to be called. Again not all HW mistakes are cause lack of power.

Nuff said about Wii and WIi U

GameCube certainly had some weird issues. It's controller lacked clickable thumb sticks, select button, and shoulder button. The memory card it launched with was too small for some games, and its mini dvds made it difficult for larger games to be brought over without either going multi disk or/compromising content.

Though, I think it's ultimate problem was that it was an also-ran console with little to set itself apart from its competitors. PS2 was the successor to the most successful console of all time, sold very well early on, and so third parties flocked to it despite it being less powerful and more difficult to program for. Xbox was the powerhouse console built to accommodate crazy stuff like out of the box broadband online gaming, dlc, custom soundtracks, and exclusive ports of high end pc games, which gave it the slight edge it needed to be GameCube in America. And what did GameCube have? Nintendo exclusives, and a handle. Probably why we won't ever see a straight up console from Nintendo again, something I'd be fine with. I lost all my love for the GameCube during 2002, and I never really got it back. Loved the Wii though, and the quirky exclusives it got through it's life. Probably why I'm a fan of Nintendo today.

it shocks me that some still think Ninty needs to make some kind of system that could rival the others. When Wii turned out to be their best selling home console ever, that was it, there was no going back

For sure. But the Cartridges were technically superior.
It allowed for supplemental processors to improve image quality.
Super fast transfer rates for zero load times. (And because of such, it needed less data in the systems DRAM as data could be streamed directly.)
More durable form factor.
Less power consumption.

The only downsides was cost and capacity, which aren't as much of a problem now in 2017, NAND and ROM have made great strides in cost and capacity thanks to various market and consumer pressures.

Gamecube and Xbox did "okay" I wouldn't call it Wii U levels of bomb. They had decent attachment ratio's, but it didn't matter what Sony's competitors did that generation, Sony had that generation down-packed and in their pocket. Sega folded and exited the console space, Nintendo and Microsoft were only marginal success's.
Microsoft was intent on loosing money with the original Xbox by going all-out just to gain a foothold in the console marketplace anyway. And they succeeded brilliantly and then made Billions with the Xbox 360.

And the Gamecube's technology was used as the basis for the Wii, so it's R&D costs was well and truly recouped, the Wii only succeeded to it's great extent  because of it's motion controls which went viral, but was also why it floundered so quickly.

That stuff is great, but it doesnt mean anything if no one wants to make games for it, which they didnt and now here we are. The benefits didnt outweigh the costs.

Naw, a major platform maker selling sub 25mil for a mainstream system is not okay. GC did like 9mil more than WiiU thats in the same ballpark of a bomb.

Wont get no argument from me about WIi that thing sold mostly on motion controls despite what some may argue