Seeing the technical marvel that GTA V is, and considering that the X360/PS3 are comparable to the Wii U from a tech perspective, then I would say that X360/PS3 (and PC) are the safest options in terms of getting the maximum sales (and revenue) for the game. You have access to a far larger market, which is why the biggest AAA titles (going forward) will be multi plat.
Nintendo will never be able to develop AAA "blockbuster" games if they continue down the path of making games solely for their under-selling consoles. They'd never be able to make a proper AAA Zelda game, as the development costs alone (time etc) won't warrant the associated risks.
Don't forget that Mario Galaxy was considered a financial disappointment even though the Wii had a really large userbase. Do you want groundbreaking/original games like Mario Galaxy, or do you want tired updates and rehashes that take minimal effort?
I care for Nintendo's software, and find their dedication towards their own hardware to not only hamper the potential of their game's sales, but also the associated (R&D) game development costs.
Tomb Raider scaled 3 million sales across a variety of platforms, and was still a financial disappointment (with people being laid off). You can insult Square Enix and Tomb Raider all you want, but Mario Kart etc will never eclipse 3 million sales.
Even Ubisoft found it difficult to shift Rayman Legends units, to the extent that the title was considered a disappointment (despite appearing on a variety of platforms). What makes people think that games like Bayonetta 2 etc won't be financial flops too? Even Mario Kart 8 might be a flop. And that's looking to be a great game - only hampered by the platform it's on, where the userbase is non-existant.
Why would anyone take risks like that? Ubisoft didn't (with Rayman), and EA aren't, so why is Nintendo stubbornly clinging to its past? Honestly, if anyone cares about the future health of Nintendo, then they'd advocate Nintendo going 3rd party in future.
Edit: edited the above.
Oh, now I get it. You're one of those "Nintendo should go 3rd party" people. That explains your irrational vitriol of the Wii U and why you want it to fail. I should have known when you made that idiotic comment that you're one of those people who want to play Nintendo games but don't want to support their platform.
Tough. It'll be a cold day in hell before that happens.
Let me tell you why your wish for Nintendo to become 3rd party is not just moronic but impossible:
1. Nintendo is a control freak. It knows that its IPs are among the most valuable in the entertainment biz. To ensure that games based from its IPs are top quality, it wants some control all aspect of the development, right from the software down to the hardware.
2. Nintendo is very profit-oriented. This has been true ever since Yamauchi turned his company from a card maker to the video game giant it is today. Until very recently (with the price drop of the Wii U) NONE of its consoles were sold at a loss, unlike what Sony and Microsoft did. This has proved to be VERY profitable to them. Since they control their hardware and publish their first-party games on that hardware, all the sales from these games are almost always pure profit since they don't need to share the sales with another company. This is the reason why, among all the video game companies since this industry started, Nintendo has NEVER been in the red.
3. Nintendo's lifeblood are their IPs. The hardware are just vehicles to deliver those. That is why people say if you want to play Nintendo games, get a Nintendo console. That is why people say you don't get a Nintendo console for third-party games; you get them for Nintendo games. Them publishing their own games on their own consoles means they don't need to pay any console manufacturer a cut of the game's sales (point #2) and their engineers and development teams will be able to get the most out of the hardware, thereby creating that unique Nintendo aesthetic and quality (point #1), even with the supposed limitation of a Nintendo console.
And here is why Nintendo going third-party is the most awful idea any gamer worth his controller can ever propose: Nintendo going third-party means they HAVE to play by the console maker's backyard. They HAVE to make their engineers be intimately familiar with more than one console. You know where I'm going with this, right? This will most assuredly cause a dip in the quality of Nintendo games. Do you know why most first-party Nintendo games have that "evergreen" quality to them? Because those games are created with optimization in mind: optimized for a Nintendo console, on Nintendo's development schedule, and subject to their intense Nintendo quality assurance. Go look at the first page in this forum: you will see a thread about Mario Kart, Super Mario 3D World, Super Smash Brothers. Go scan there pages: you will notice that everyone agrees the visual and mechanics quality are top notch. Nintendo games rarely, if ever, drop in value across the years -- hell, in my place, a brand new Super Mario Galaxy 2 is still around the $50 range.
If you really care for Nintendo's software, then you will never want them to go third-party. That is inane and that would be suicide. The short-term gains they make with cross-platform sales will never offset the devaluation of their IP, and it will hurt them in the long run.
Also, Mario Kart will never eclipse Tomb Raider sales? What the fuck are you smoking? Mario Kart Wii ALONE sold 34.26 million copies as of March, according to Wikipedia. Square-Enix would give their balls to have sales like that, that is not Final Fantasy.
