Well the Xbox brand can't seem to do much in Japan even when the games being released for it should have brought in more gamers than they did. 

This will be two generations that Nintendo consoles will be known for games that aren't what many of the hardcore crowd on Microsoft and Sony consoles play.  Do you think the Wii is doing anything to change that image?

Microsoft has its work cut out for it trying to change the Xbox brand's hardcore image to a mass appeal one.  Nintendo has the opposite problem.

Legend I am not sure you are following the conversation.

Based on the assumption that the games he wants would appear on the next Nintendo system or the next Playstation, he still would not buy them! The reasoning behind that is what eludes me.

losing money isnt that much of a problem. its when people arent even buying games that the problem appears.

 Really now?

Maybe it's Nintendo's new way of using relatively weak hardware or backwards online compared to the competition?  Just because a game comes to a Nintendo platform doesn't always mean it's the same experience as on the competition's.  It could also be that if the game does in fact come to a Nintendo platform it won't be the lead console like the Xbox 360 is for many such games or they'll be afterthoughts at best.  Or that the Xbox brought a very PC flavor to gaming that he prefers that the other consoles don't have.

Ask yourself this, why is it that many PC fanboys also view the Wii favorably?  Do you think it's only because the games don't overlap as much or is it also the fact that many don't see the Wii as any threat to PC gaming?  Take the sig for some of them in which there's a "Glorious PC gaming master race" and "Dirty console gaming peasants", that's the way some see consoles and especially the Wii since it fits their mindset of what a gaming console should be.  And with the success of the Wii do you really think Nintendo is going to do anything different when it comes to power in their next console?

I don't think the game industry will crash, because the market is still growing.

What's strange though is why the publishers are losing money off an industry that has seen phenomenal growth for at least a decade. Usually growing industries are accompanied by companies that make great money. How come that people in the gaming industry are so stupid to erase all the potential for great profit by having these increasing game development costs (not just in the HD gen, EA, Take Two and others started to lose money way before this gen).

You forget to mention nintendo ALWAYS makes money and is raking in the dough with the WII. You od have valid points and I think the next generation of consoles from Sony and MS will not be such loss leaders. They machines will be powerful but not like this generation were they both went for broke. They will be even or lose just $50.00 a machine at first.

Game publishers are going to have to make LESS games but higher quality. I think a crash i possible but not likely the gaming market is too large

@Legend:

That would make sense if it weren't for the fact that he cast aside the Playstation, too.

thank God we have the Auto and Banking industry to save us from this fall.

debt is a good thing, it makes the companies grow.  Most of the biggest companies in the world are in debt at the end of their financial year.  Although debt can be a pretty bad thing when  the economy is in recession the fact that people are still buying games probably means that EA are still makin' a load of cash and aren't in such a tight spot.  Debt is high because everybody suffers in recessions yet EA is still a pretty solvent company by the looks of it.