I didn't read all of this, and I'm not about to, but I will throw my $0.02 for those who are reading the whole thing.

It doesn't MATTER if nintendo is outsold 10,000 to 1 by sony AND ms, so long as they make money, they'll stay in the game, it's that simple. Going 3rd party might be the best thing to happen to the company, but it will never happen. Nintendo is far to arrogant to let it happen. If they WERE to be bought out the only real players in that game are MS and EA anyway and nintendo is also far to racist to let themselves be bought out by an American company (deny it if you will, but you know it's true.)

Nintendo makes enough money with the gameboy to put out another console even if the cube ends up being a huge failure. They'd be stupid enough to do it too.

That's the one thing you have to remember, no matter what else comes inbetween nintendo and the third party, stubborness will always be the final determining factor. They're simply not smart enough to do what's best for them.