I really think this varies by consoles now. Nintendo's games can't be AAA compared to Xbox One and PS4. Completely different platforms with different specs and time needed to fully develop a new game. I remember an article talking about how in the 7th gen it costed around $20m for a game on the PS360, and around 2- 5m for the Wii. Right now I'd assume $80-100m for a new game on PS4/Xbox based on what Remedy said, and Square Enix announcing the new Tomb Raider costing a solid $100m; and 20-30m on the Switch for a game built from scratch.

Nintendo can be low budget compared to Microsoft and Sony and still be AAA because of the Switch's situation. For them it just comes down to the scope of their game and the marketing budget, Arms, Mariokart, and Splatoon would not be AAA, they are small games that look dirt cheap to make. BOTW and Mario Odyssey would definitely be AAA.

Microsoft and Sony seem to be more realistic and upfront with what games are AAA and what games are not. Albeit Microsoft only fucked up with pricing Sea of Thieves.
If Nintendo published Cuphead, State of Decay 2, and Ori; they would all cost $80(CAD) and people would call those games AAA, like they do for majority of their titles.

I don't see any reason why they wouldn't.

No. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft make AAAA games. That is why I own all three. I am not a big fan of AAA games, I prefer AAAA or VR. I am cool with AAA games on portable devices though, that is why I am a huge fan of Remote Play, and would love a Handheld/Phone Hybrid.

NSM don't need to dabble in AAA games. They can let the 3rd parties hadnle that. Keep on delivering AAAA titles, and I will keep buying all three consoles.

If its an ambitious big budget project that's pushing the potential of the hardware, I consider it a AAA project.

Like majority in here are saying, AAA is based off production value.. from what I thought. A good example is I consider State of Decay 2 to be a AA game while Gears 4 is a AAA.

That is your opinion, not a fact and i disagree with your opinion. It's also irrelevant to the topic. AAA is about budget and production values, not your preference.

Exactly why triple A is arbitrary nonsense not relevant to anything. Indie or big studio, what matters is if the game is good.

It's two things, budget and the technology related to the game.

Sequals and even Multiplayer only games will have smaller budgets then the norm, but the technology related to the game would make them AAA.

Just like Black Ops 4 can be considered an AAA game, even though it's going to have a way smaller budget when compared to the norm.

The topic was not asking if it matters or not. It's about what AAA is.

The topic is do console makers games count as triple A. That would mean that by default PC games are triple A. So by your criteria, it would clearly be a false start for the conversation, hence why the conversation automatically revolves around quality of games IE: Are the games good or not. Let's not pretend it's about something else.