"The things we touch have no permanence."
Rare hasn't produced for Microsoft. That's not the issue at hand currently. The issue is what Rare could produce for Nintendo. Rare's average sales during their time with Nintendo was well in excess of 1 million units. I find it hard to believe that would have changed if Rare had stayed onboard. N64 was one of the fastest selling consoles. To which I believe the response is: so? If it's still going like this in 6 months, I'll be impressed. Not ready to hand the torch over to Nintendo but impressed nonetheless. I'm pretty sure Wii's a last generation console competing in the current generation. I do agree that Wii is generally the cheapest console to produce for, at least when it comes to exclusives (I'd be surprised if it's not the most expensive to port to). Apparently, though, when Epic says they made the biggest game of the year for under $10 mil, they're lying.
Proud Member of GAIBoWS (Gamers Against Irrational Bans of Weezy & Squilliam)
Which supports original post. N64 was one of the fastest selling conoles. So? Nintendo needs more than a strong launch to be more than third place. What's going to continue demand going forward? Mario, Pokemon, and Zelda can only get them so far. Unless they get some real third party support and not one crappy announcement here and there, there's only so far they can go. I don't see any data that suggests a change to their ranking from last generation, though we may see a boost back toward N64 levels in terms of unit sales.
It's Sony who needs help right now. Nintendo is still selling out after 4 months and 6 million units pretty much on the strength of Wii Sports and Zelda alone.