Isn't that their normal cycle though? Produce a console that prints money, produce a console that bleeds money, repeat. Seems like their cash reserves keep them nimble enough to experiment and remain independent.
I don't think bleeding money is accurate for Nintendo. They are in the habitat of iterating on their previous consoles instead of just throwing everything out the window each time like some other companies, so even with their consoles that flopped it's not like the R&D money is just down the drain, and I'm sure labor-and-materials-wise they're making some kind of margin on the hardware itself.
i don’t think they’ve had a console that bleeds money in the sense that playstations/xboxes have, though they’ve had quite a few flops over the past 20 years
Given the cycles for Nintendo consoles this sounds pretty reasonable particularly now that they have a single line of consoles with the Switch instead of console + handheld.
It's not like the Wii U sold a lot. Who knows if the Switch replacement won't be a Wii U. Who knows if there won't be two Wii Us in a row.
Businesses are not people who get old, can't keep working, and retire. Businesses can borrow significant sums of money, issue stock, come up with a new product that can transform their revenues overnight, etc.
I know what you're trying to say but this isn't a great comparison.
If they stopped selling anything tomorrow they’d still be good for a few decades.