The PlanetGameCube editors pointed out that these analysts seem to have completely missed the point. And I agree with them.
It's about the bottom line, people. Profits. You make more profits, you win.
These analysts are saying that Nintendo could reach a wider audience if they went third party which is correct. But Nintendo would make vastly less money by doing so.
It's really not that hard to figure out. Nintendo gets to charge licensing fees for games developed on the GameCube. For every single GameCube game that's sold, Nintendo gets a small cut of the profit. On top of this, Nintendo gets to sell massive amounts of their own games and keep all the profits from those games. Sure, many games haven't sold as well as Nintendo might have hoped, but many have still sold a million worldwide.
What would happen if Nintendo went third party? Well, just for starters, they would have to
pay licensing fees for their games instead of receiving licensing fees. It doesn't matter if their games sell more copies. Their profitability would be drastically reduced.
Analysts and people like IGN are always obsessing over units sold and having a wide audience, but they are missing the point. Nintendo is making money. Lots of it. In fact,
this thread here reports that Nintendo is making more money in this business than anyone else. This is despite the fact that Sony has more than twice Nintendo's marketshare.
You can talk all you want about what you'd
like Nintendo to do. But right now, they're not going anywhere. They may have lost marketshare, but they're perfectly willing to let Sony and Microsoft sell more consoles as long as they are laughing all the way to the bank.