If by "could bleed millions for decades and still be in the black" you mean "would probably go out of business if their next console after the WiiU flops too," then sure.

 

I mean "they could flop for five generations of consoles in a row and still be fine."

If you want to insist on being an ass about it, I can do your legwork for you and find the numbers, not that it's remotely on-topic.

 

If you really think that their cash bank means that they can continue as they are - especially if their next handheld doesn't catch fire like the DS (and to a lesser extent the 3DS) has - you have no idea how this works.

 

But if you factor in the Pokemon Franchise alone, the amount of money they make with each release is ridiculous, if that outweighs the failure of consoles is one point I'm not explicitly sure about, but I'd imagine it very well could.

 

It can't. The Pokemon franchise is huge and brings in an immense amount of money, but you have to keep in mind just how hard the WiiU is tanking. The 3DS is incredibly successful, and there was a Pokemon release last year, but it wasn't enough to keep them in the black.

 

The 3DS wasn't 'successful' until x/y.

If you think a massive pokemon rpg won't sell consoles, well, whatever. We can't argue hypotheticals, but pokemon has been selling Nintendo consoles for a long, long time.

 

Even if you ignore games entirely, Nintendo still make incredible amounts of money just from licencing out the Pokémon franchise for anime and trading cards and shit. Yes, Nintendo lost money last year, but they made a lot during the DS and Wii years. They really could release nothing but Virtual Boys for the next decade and still have enough left over to develop another one.

As for a console RPG... Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD didn't exactly sell the Gamecube, did they?

 

I'm sorry, are we confusing the meaning behind the term 'rpg'?

 

I'd love to see the numbers for this, because everything I've seen suggests it's been successful since at least early 2013.

A massive Pokemon RPG would sell consoles. It wouldn't sell enough to save the system, but it would definitely sell consoles.

E:

What. If they released "nothing but VirtualBoys for the next decade" they'd collapse the company. They have cash on hand from the DS/Wii days, but not anywhere near that much. They managed to lose money last year (and only managed to avoid losing money the year before because of cash exchange rates) despite the 3DS and the release of Pokemon X/Y. Can you imagine how poorly they'd do if the 3DS wasn't doing as well as it is? They cannot keep this up for a decade, let alone do something insane like "release nothing but VirtualBoys for the next decade."

 

They have 'cash on hand' from the NES days dude

 

That is really pedantic. You realize that, right?

 

It really isn't.

There's a massive different between holding that kind of cash for 10 years, and hodling it for almost 30 years.

The Wii wasn't even as successful as people make it out to be, it had an appalling attach rate. They made what little money they could on the console, and people bought no games. All they wanted was Wii sports.

It didn't make them the kind of money that the NES, SNES and Mario did. Or the PS1/2 did Sony.

They've been sitting on that for YEARS. The WiiU isn't the first of their consoles to tank. The N64 and the Game Cube tanked too, and guess what? They're still wiggling around like a cockroach, pumping out Mario and Pokemon games yearly like it's tradition.

That's not even counting the revenue streams not tied to their gaming division - all Japanese companies do it.

 

Bullshit.

Nintendo made a profit on each system sold. From that same IGN article, the Wii is Nintendo's third most successful system, after the Gameboy and DS. Incidentally, it has a higher attach rate than both of those systems.

The WiiU is tanking harder than the N64 and Gamecube did. It would take a miracle for the WiiU to recover to Gamecube levels. It's basically impossible for it to hit N64 numbers at this point.

List an example.
E: To be more specific, list an example of Nintendo doing this.

 

Thanks for clearing that up Hugplx.

Now I'm 100% sure I can ignore everything you post, since you're not working with reality at all, just what you want reality to be.

 

The Wii sales were ridiculous. It blew the 360 and the PS3 out of the water. At one point, their sales were actually coming close to eclipsing both the 360 and the PS3 numbers combined.

Why the flying fuck do you think Microsoft and Sony decided to roll out the Kinect and the This-Isn't-a-Wiimote-Remote? It sure wasn't because they'd spent time and money testing and trialing the technology to make sure it would sell. It was because they fucking panicked. Executives saw the numbers, realized they were getting their asses kicked, and promptly shat their pants, because they didn't know why. Not knowing why, they decided that the reason must be the motion-control technology, which is why they both proceeded to rip the Wii off. They were also wrong, which is why Sony has quietly pretended their Wiimote doesn't exist for the past few years, and why Kinect is still a fucking cancer hardware peripheral, to the point that it literally kneecapped the Bone on-release by being a pointless money sink that only served to make the PS4 look that much better by comparison.

Nintendo won last gen. They ran off with the awards, stole the food off of the buffet, filled their pockets with the complimentary soup, and then keyed Microsoft's car on the way out by convincing them that bundled motion sensing technology at day-one was a fantastic idea.

The amount of money they made boggles the mind. Never mind past successes, they could bleed money for three console generations based on Wii sales alone and still be completely fucking fine. It also helps that they dominate the dedicated handheld market with all the overbearing oppressiveness of an adult bull Tyrannosaurus resting it's giant steaming nutsack on your forehead.

I don't know where Hugplox gets the idea that they're cruising on NES money, or where Solomon gets the idea that they're poor, but, well. You're both wrong. Like, completely. Sorry.

Also, this has nothing to do with Pokemon, so I'm stopping now. I'll probably pick it up when it drops. I still think Ruby/Sapphire and Gold/Silver were the best gens, certainly better than the crappy ones we've had recently. Hopefully it won't have a shit endgame like XY. Hopefully our ability to offer help and services to our friends won't be restricted by forces outside of our control, like ID numbers. I await with cautious optimism.

Horns ftw.

 

When the fuck did I say they were poor? They have a huge cash bank. What I have been saying is that cash bank won't last forever. Creating a console costs a ridiculous amount of money between R&D and manufacturing. Having that console not sell means that they're not only not making that R&D and manufacturing money back, but they're not making back as much of their game budget as they should. The 3DS is doing extremely well - not as well as the DS did, but that's understandable - and it still isn't enough to break even, let alone profit.

If Nintendo's next system flops anywhere near as hard as the WiiU is currently flopping now, they will have to seriously consider dropping out of the console game entirely. If it does so without an extremely successful handheld to keep them afloat, they will go bankrupt. This isn't fucking rocket science.

E: In fact, here's the reality of their cash bank: As of the financial report released last year for their FY2013, Nintendo had approximately 4.6 billion USD (according to current exchange rates.) Partly because their stock price tanked immediately after releasing that report, Nintendo had to do a share buyback.

They also recently released their report for the FY2014, where between the stock buyback and their operating expenses between the 3DS - which didn't meet their sales expectations, but still did pretty well - and the WiiU - which basically didn't sell - they had to spend a billion dollars. Their cash bank is now approximately 3.6 billion USD.

It will not last forever. You need to understand that.

E2: Just to clarify, obviously events like that don't happen regularly. That shit is a complete outlier, yet at the same time it happened. Nintendo had to spend nearly a quarter of their fucking bank in a single year. If things continue at this rate they'll lose 200+ million dollars regularly (the general loss from the top of their report for FY 2014), and then they'll have to blow through a huge chunk of their bank to build their next handheld and their next console. This isn't about Nintendo being poor, it's about having realistic expectations of the cost of running a failing console.

 

I wanna be the very best.

Like no one ever waaaaas.

To catch them is my real test.

TO TRAIN THEM IS MY CAUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSEEEEEEE.

 

This is the most on-topic post in the last page.

 

I think my first run through will be 6 Brelooms.

 

For the love of god, thank you.

But anyway.... how about them remakes? I think I'm just going to go with whoever looks coolest, just like I did the first time. I'm thinking of using a Seviper and Exploud this go through. Not sure on the others. I'd like to use Gen 3 only pokemon, but I'm not sure who else I like in there. To bulbapedia!