I am not sure about now, but from the N64 era to the 3DS era, Nintendo always reported more revenue off of hardware sales than they did software sales. The margin was also so high that it’s unlikely that has changed during the Switch era. Even when GBA/Cube was selling for dirt they still generated more revenue than the software sold on them.

It must also be noted that GBA and GameCube sold for 99 USD by 2003, and Switch sells for 300 USD. So 21 million Cubes and GBAs is actually worth only 7 million Switches in terms of raw revenue. And while game prices weren’t generally effected, even in this era Nintendo still generated more revenue from hardware than software by a significant margin.

I’ll note that Nintendo reported third party royalty income, and these dropped off a cliff during the Cube/GBA era probably due to Nintendo changing policy to match Sony’s much lower royalties in the PSX era, or simply that they had no ownership over the medium like they did with cartridges - and simply changed the GBA expenses to third parties to equalize. These income sources, however, DID shoot back up during the Wii era, and I am not certain, but I believe this is from digital content, and part of my suspicion comes from 3DS and Wii U still generating much higher royalties than the Cube/GBA, although lower than the peak era for Wii’s software sales volume during 09/10.

Net income, rather than revenue, sounds like what people are talking about. Net income = profits with expenses (such as taxes and such) applied. Now, one might look at the Cube and say “This thing, even at 99 USD was profitable because it sold for more than the expenses for the cost of its parts,” and while this is true when you don’t consider anything else, the expenses going into Nintendo’s home console division: asset maintenance/expenses, resource expenses, marketing, R&D, corporate - all of which mostly supported Nintendo’s home console business, not their handheld. Without the GB, GBA, and DS, Nintendo would have lost several billion USD during the GC generation, but luckily, they had the handhelds which generated both more revenue and higher profit margins on hardware since GBAs and DSs were cheaper to manufacture than the cube, and actually sold for more (GBA dropped to 80 USD, but DS was selling at 130).

Aside from the 3DS/Wii U era, Nintendo’s net income during the Cube/GBA era was the lowest Nintendo had generated since the mid-1980s. Much of this is because because of the collapse of their home console business - cheap hardware selling in low volumes. Nintendo is better understood as a handheld company in the GBA/pre-Wii DS era with a very heavy financial burden of keeping their home console business afloat until they could launch the Wii and actually make money.

The Switch, is much higher valued hardware selling at high volumes. Net income is significantly higher as a result.

Correction/clarification: Gamecube by itself actually sold more on software than hardware - only when combined with handhelds did hardware generate more revenue than software. And some of this may have to do with the amount they ship as well, I'm just looking at 2004 right now because that was the highest year for this era.