I think there's a difference between what's best for gamers and what's best for Nintendo.  If they own their own platform they don't have to give a large cut of profits to Sony or MS and they receive royalties from all third party sales.  Why give up all that if you're not making a loss on hardware sales?  Would their games really sell upwards of 25% more units (needed to offset the royalties they'd be paying) if they were a third party dev?  I highly doubt so.

Also, I don't think their consoles are becoming more expensive.  If I recall well, the N64 cost the equivalent of €400 on launch, while the WiiU cost €350.  One could argue that the N64 was cutting edge tech at launch, while the WiiU wasn't, but that's not the argument you made.  edit: you specified further by adding 'over the past 10 years', so my point about the launch price of the N64 is moot.

edit: and then I didn't even mention how dev cost on their own last 2 consoles has been markedly lower than that on competing systems due to the lower specs of their own hardware.

Remember to pound that like button.

How can you be so down on Nintendo hardware when you're playing the greatest fighting game of all time on it?

Back me up Robio.

If that happens I still wouldn't want them to leave hardware, I would just want them to make "better" hardware. "Better" meaning hardware that more consumers and third parties would want and want to make games on.

Yeah it's done for them, now the hardware doesn't even bring anything new to the table. When they tried something totally groundbreaking hardcore gamers cried like babies. So they went backward and now it's just an outdated console with nothing special. VR has come and Nintendo is no where to be found there, they offer nothing new tech wise. There is no reason for their hardware. And who cares if they make another ps4 or Xbox, it will never be a primary system. Either invent something new or go third party.

edgecrusher said:

To Supreme's point (I kind of wanted to wait until more people replied before responding but ehhh) about what's best for Nintendo and best for customers are different things that may be true to an extent but how is it good for Nintendo in the long run if they continue a downward spiral, have consoles that are only really good for THEIR games, and continue to alienate people? There's a ton of people that Nintendo pissed off during the Wii 1 era, when they were more interested in catering to people who don't even really care for their games. They tried to get people people back on Wii U and look....it sold half of Gamecube's units. Which basically means half of Nintendo's old hardcore fanbase said "fuck you". Now, they're killing off the U and early launching (seems anyway) the NX, which is bound to piss off some people as well. Its a slope SEGA went down. I know Nintendo has a ton of money, but if everyone gives you the middle finger it doesn't matter how much money you have...your shit won't sell.

So in the end, what's best for fans IS what's best for Nintendo. Otherwise, you're left with less and less of them to sustain you and sooner or later, you're losing money.

For me personally, I'll buy the NX if it has a decent lineup and its decent hardware. But, the industry is different now. If they announced they were going to all platforms tomorrow, I wouldn't care. In fact, I would welcome it. One thing they have that SEGA didn't is APPEAL to their games. They would be fine and likely thrive as a 3rd-party.

I think you're talking too much from the hart and not enough from a business point of view.

CNBC stated in an article from end 2013 that Sony and MS typically receive about $7 in royalties from the sale of a $60 game.  Lets assume the same rings true for Nintendo.

Up to december 31st 2015 the WiiU had lifetime software sales of about 79million units.  Say, conservatively, that 2 thirds of those sales are first and second party.  That leaves them with 26.33 million third party sales.  That's $184.33 million in royalties.

If Nintendo would have gone third party, they'd have paid twice that in royalties themselves to Sony and MS, based on those numbers.  That's a difference of over half a billion dollars.

Add to that that development cost will be significantly lower on the WiiU than on Sony and MS's more advanced tech.  Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but figures go from anywhere to produciing a WiiU game costing 50-75% of a PS4 or Xbone game.  In effect this means that Nintendo only has to sell something between half to three quarters as many units to break even when compared to first party titles from MS or Sony.

Now if they were publishing on MS and Sony hardware, not only would their development budgets rise significantly due to having to compete on higher specced tech, but their profit margins would also be hurt by having to pay royalties on every unit sold.

Then there's the point of marketting budgets.  Nintendo could release the next Mario Kart with zero marketting, and it'd still be a multimillion seller.  Because a 1st party release on a Nintendo console is an event.  Would the same be true if the same game was released on a Sony or MS console?  I highly doubt it.

Do you really think that Nintendo software would sell twice as well if they went third party?  I highly doubt it.  More realisticaly, they'd go the same route as Sega and just slowly die, albeit at a much faster rate than they are seemingly doing now.

Sources:

http://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/27/teardown-of-xbox-ps4-reveal-tight-margins.html

http://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/sales/hard_soft/

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Video_game_costs

Of course, one could make the point that they'd save all that R&D spending, which hovers around the $300million mark on a yearly basis.    It wouldn't make up for the extra costs as described above though.

SupremeAC said

Of course, one could make the point that they'd save all that R&D spending, which hovers around the $300million mark on a yearly basis.    It wouldn't make up for the extra costs as described above though.

All I can say to all that is its a double edged sword either way. Will they be satisfied with royalties from consoles that only sell 10 million units? And will they hold on to enough fans to keep selling 10 million units? If the NX doesn't sell any better than the Wii U I think they'd be in trouble, royalties or not.

The Wii was Nintendo's best console though. I'd give them another chance.