Nintendo saved home consoles.

I would have to say Nintendo doesn't get enough credit.

When the Nes launched, the market was dead due to low quality control, and lack of innovation. Not only did Nintendo bring quality and innovation (R.O.B. the video Robot would do your homework), they continue to bring fresh ideas to the table each generation.

At the end of the 16-bit era, I told myself I'd never buy another console. I was 18, and it was time to grow up....then the 64 hit. I bought it on day one. Near the end of the last generation, I figured it was time to stop gaming. I have a kid, and responsibilities now. "Video games wern't going to look or play much better", I told myself. At that time, I wasn't too impressed with what the 360 was doing back in 2005 (I did buy one in January this year though- it's awesome!). Nintendo's Wii captured my imagination, and made me excited again. My point is this: Not only did Nintendo save gaming (imo), they continue to utilize technology like analog, mode 7, motion control, and touch screens so that people like me who feel that the industry is getting stale NEVER give up their favorite hobby. (I forgive them for the Gamecube's "by the numbers" approach.)

Nintendo saved the console gaming industry. Atari did so much damage to the industry Nintendo had to jump through hoops just to get US retailers to carry the NES. Yamauchi had to promise to buy back any unsold product. It seems to me that the only people debating this point weren't around to see how bad things were before the NES took off.

As for Sony, Sony deserves credit for building the European market. Before the Playstation console gaming was purely niche in Europe. In fact, if you compare the NES sales to the PS1 sales you will see that almost all of the 40+ million the PS1 has over the NES in overall sales came from the Euro market.

Everyone chill a bit.. ET clearly saved the industry

I think Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony are all moving hardwave.  But Japanese companies do not dominate the software.  The largest game publishers in America are Nintendo, EA, Activison, THQ, Take-Two Interactive, Sony,  Microsoft, and Ubisoft (maybe some others).  Most of these are not Japanese companies.  Namco, Capcom, and Sega used to be huge in America but they are not what they used to be in the American market.

 You said it better than any one of us could. I could barelly afford a Wii at U$ 250. My life would suck if I had to spend more than U$ 400-600 on a console,U$ 60 on games and U$ 1000+ on a HDTV

 Were you rebutting my post or did you just want to say something about software?

 Uh, let's try this using facts instead of delusion:

Nintendo and Sony were partnered in trying to make a disc-based add-on to the Super Nintendo.  Sony wanted royalties on the hardware as well as on the game discs themselves.  This amounted to an obscene amount of money and Nintendo refused to continue the project.  Sony took the ideas (as the hardware was being built by them) and turned it into the PlayStation.  Nintendo then went to Philips and that fell apart, resulting in the CD-i (and the god-awful Zelda "games" that came out on it)

Nintendo saved video gaming.  They did not make it what it is "today" (by which I mean 2006 -- they could arguably make it what it is today with the introduction of the Wii, but that's another discussion entirely).  But they absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, saved it.

 So you stated the obvious: Second year games selling more thatn first year games