I don't fully agree:

The gamers you see bitching online (like me) are only a portion of gamers. When you go in to a Wal Mart or even a Gamestop, talk to some of the people there, many do not even know about the "Gaming Community"

Wind Waker and Sunshine were still big sellers, with long legs.

Nintendo was never going bankrupt.



Otherwise you are right. Hardcore gaming became too competitive to compete at maximum efficiency, so Nintendo went for a new market.

It's funny how the things that people want are the things which ultimately dissatisfy them the most. And the things they find themselves thoroughly enjoying for being different are the very things they deride and belittle before they actually try them. In short, we humans are a messed-up lot, and would probably all do a lot better if we just went with the opposite of our initial reactions and prevailing desires. Or maybe we'd be just as bad off, but in a different way. Who knows?

That was an interesting read, but there's a flaw in your argument involving this paragraph:

As a warning to Xbox and Playstation fans everywhere, I would like to add that the same applies to you. If you demand more and more expensive technology and more sequels to GTA, Halo, Final Fantasy, Call of Duty and Metal Gear, that's exactly what you'll get, but companies that appeal to a broader audience and innovate will eventually resign your demographic to Gamecube-like proprotions and I don't know whether Sony or Microsoft have the willpower to deviate and rejuvenate themselves like Nintendo did.

Zelda, Mario and Metroid are published and developed from the same company. FF, MGS, Halo, GTA and CoD don't allowing the franchises more freedom to innovate from different minds. I can agree that many franchises have trouble innovating, but FF DOES innovate. They've always innovated in some way shape or form. The same can be said about the GTA transition into 3-D and then in GTA4 the mechanic that insures that you will never see the same pedestrian twice adding a lot of variety in what you see and hear adding to the experience of the game.

Basically, the reason Nintendo was going down in the dumps at that time is because of their third-party issue. I don't think that will happen to either MS or Sony since they allow more third parties to grow financially than Nintendo.

Sony doesn't control the FF, MGS, and GTA franchise. Just like MS doesn't control the Halo, Bioshock and GeoW franchise. They have influence over them, but at the same time give the developers freedom. They may even be involved in the development process but they don't take over.

Why do you doubt that Sony could make a turnaround when they are the smallest of the three companies?

GTA is a casual game but it's also a Hardcore game , it's so open it really leaves you to do want you want , run around and blow stuff up or complete all the main missions , sub missions etc etc.

Very well written, but I will read some points.

1. Sunshine WAS terrible, not half as good as 64 which I don't even really like

2. The Wind Waker is awesome, I still don't know why people didn't like it...and the sailing is only a bit longer then walking across Hyrule Field in OoT or TP, yet no one complained about that. 

3. TP is also awesome and better than OoT

Okay, that's it.

Also, it is disturbing to think that Nintendo might not have made the Wii and would be out of the console business, but the sad thing is that's very likely. If they would have made another system, equal to the 360 and PS3 in power and called it the Nintendo GamePower or something, they would currently be selling much worse then the PS3 has and be the laugh of the gaming world.

However, I think the DS would have saved them from death, and they would have continued on in the handheld world, not as glorius as Microsoft or Sony, but still making tons of money.

Nintendo's method is far too conservative for them to have any significant losses. Though they could have potentially end up making near-zero profit had they continued the usual route as Sony and MS did, they would almost definitely never experience any losses of note. For a company of their size, losses are not reconcilable to the degree that they are for companies with vast resources (like Sony and MS). Which is a big piece of why Nintendo is so conservative, of course. Unlike many companies, they have a very firm grasp of their true standing in the market both on the micro and the macro level.

 Please show us a prove of this... I'm curious... (I'm saying this based on two things, the success of the DS + the strong thir party support, and the dev cost of the PS3/360+high budget tittles)

Aren't development costs 1/4 to that of a PS3/360 game on the Wii? Plus, they gotta make demos/artwork and all that kinda stuff before a true game comes out. There are more 3rd parties on the Wii than ever, and eventually after wading through shovelware, gamers will stumble upon a sleeper hit.