Yeah, but stories like this makes it more interesting for the reader - and increases visibility as the media makes typical "Nintendoom" headlines. If Wii U had been a success, Reggie would say the same about Wii U.

Interesting take.
Because the Wii U wasn't make or break in a lot of ways. I know Nintendo likes hefty revenue and profits, but they had enough money to spare to have several more pieces of hardware fail like the Wii U.
PS4 could've been the end of the PlayStation division because of the billions lost from the PS3 and the Vita pretty much being dead on arrival. Nintendo is not in as dire of straits as that.

I actually agree that the Switch was "make or break" for Nintendo to continue producing dedicated home console hardware. Of course, the company wouldn't have gone out of business if the Switch was another fail like the Wii U, but let's face it that Nintendo would be out of the hardware business after such an event. It isn't just about the money a company has in the bank but it is also about investor confidence. Nintendo is a publicly traded company and we all forget that the Wii U was such a disaster that Iwata took a 50% paycut just to appease the company's panicked investors. If the Switch did as poorly as the Wii U did there is no way that Nintendo would have support from its shareholders to try a third time. The view would have been that the ship has sailed on Nintendo making its own home consoles and that the Wii was just an outlier in the trend of Nintendo's continually diminishing success in the home console market.

It's a different question about whether Nintendo would still be making dedicated handhelds. Nintendo has had a strong history of success with handhelds, more so than with home consoles. That said, handhelds have always been a secondary market for Nintendo and the 3DS really wasn't all that successful after around 2014 either due to the smartphone gaming fad. I suspect that if the Switch failed, Nintendo probably wouldn't be making dedicated handhelds anymore either since the Switch would be seen as a second rebuke of the dedicated handheld market for Nintendo.

In conclusion, I agree with Reggie that the Switch was make or break for Nintendo at least in the hardware business. I am sure that he had inside information about this as well regarding the scenarios that the company had battle-planned as contingency in case the Switch failed. It just makes me more grateful than ever that the Switch succeeded. That said, it is also important to acknowledge just how major the Switch has been for Nintendo.  The Switch isn't just Nintendo staving off defeat, it has been a major course correction that has effectively put Nintendo back on the top of the market and has completely changed the trajectory of the company's future.

Yep people always forget about the investor. They been pushing for Nintendo to go into the mobile market. So if the Switch had failed I agree it would have been make or break as it would have changed the direction of Nintendo due to pressure from the investors.

People keep bringing up that Nintendo had enough money to weather more Wii U style flops. Which may be sort of true, but the question is, whose money is it?

The answer is not Nintendo itself, but Nintendo's shareholders. And the shareholders don't own Nintendo stock just because they wanted to own a piece of Nintendo's cash pile. They own the stock because of their belief that Nintendo will use that money to make more money, which will come to them via dividends or increased stock price.

If someone is using your money to do something that they are repeatedly failing at, you're not going to want them to keep doing it. Stockholders would definitely have demanded a change in strategy, likely to a third party developer strategy with a big focus on mobile gaming (not necessarily saying that'd be a good thing, but that would likely be the thinking). Or, they might want to just cash out entirely. Of course, they could just sell their stock at market price, but if they want to get the most money for their stock, they'd want to find a buyer who thinks Nintendo is worth way more than its current selling price. Considering Nintendo is a company that has a huge amount of intangible value, it's not hard to imagine there would be companies that think they can get more money out of Mario and Pokemon than Nintendo was making in the Wii U era.

Nintendo wouldn't go bankrupt, but it's not like monopoly where you just play till you run out of money. Nintendo as we know it would likely be done. It would have been a prime target for a buyout.(although there may be some Japanese law that would make less likely than if they were American). Going third party would also be pretty likely. Or both of those things.

So, I'd say make or break is a fair assessment.

Nintendo always makes a console that fails and then after that it succeeds. Its very rare for Nintendo to make a back to back successful console. It's only the handheld that does really well