I think one of the biggest messages of this current generation is the fact how Microsoft and Sony heavily rely on 3rd parties, daily evidence, is Halo and Rare's kinect games really enough for self-sufficiency, and Sony killing it's old studios, as any biz view Wii is a success, well it is a financial success, but we can argue not necessairly feature wise, but it is not a failure, the technical aspects are far better in terms of quality and assembly, as well as design, it works fine, it has extremely low failure rate, pretty much it's just the software that was lackluser, that doesn't mean they are incapable as usually the quick conclusion, it's simply they didn't put an effort or focus in it, big difference, so you have the general public taking WiiU with A LOT of doubt because of these diluted perceptions gained from Wii, and that's very unprofessional if it comes out of an analyst or any industry veteran. So continuing, Wii is a prime actual example of how self sufficient nintendo is. Those amazing aspects are overlooked in mainstream a lot, not to mention Pachter who made such a fool of him self of tossing that kind of BS around, we know facts for months on GAF while he still makes same old ignorant statements. I don't have examples right now, It would took me some time to even find all of that he said throught the year.
Nintendo really is the last to be doomed, I mean, even if WiiU fails the 3rd parties, that doesn't matter the system won't sell, in worst case scenario it would be GCN2, but did that made nintendo bankrupt? No. They didn't panicked and compromised the whole system with another direction, just making games and kept producing some very high quality stuff. But they deserved much more for their work, and that's why Wii had the direction of what we saw.
People need to also understand how cost effective nintendo is in many areas, while MS and Sony spend millions on low/relative effect stuff such as gazillion worthy adverst of logos on major TV broadcasts, that's waste of money, not targeting the right audience at all, yes some are, but the percentage is low, all that money to waste.
And Iwate or Miyamoto pointed out how the west likes just to throw money at big high profile games.
The other thing is, exclusivity deals, that huge, and nintendo specifically iwata said this year that nintendo won't be wasting money competing with them on this.
And Im not going to speculate on scenarios of what if something happens to MS-Sony that one of them would be in trouble. I'm not here to predict dooms and such wild guesses, anythings possible but not all of it is worth discussing.
Honestly the only remotely similar scenario may be that WiiU is a pretty big early hit, everyone realizes and jumps on it, even those waiting for other systems, now that will be interesting if WiiU has ~15 million userbase head start.
I think nintendo is very smart and I think that's because they witholded a lot of information for long but it is not really the necessary case, the system was announced 2 E3s before, that's unusual, but it's also to keep info off competitiors. It is very silly that the general public even Pachter and gaming sites take the the fact that nintendo is a very unpredictable company in a negative tone, but that is a fundamental advantage to competitors, that's the most positive thing you need to have when you're a dedicated company against 2 giants.
The general public also funnily bases their nintendoom and big panic drama on slight stock changes, that's so silly considering majorit of the stock is AFAIK in hands of current employees and the yamauchi family or at least someone with direct nintendo connection not the random international profit-hungry shareholder.
