Amongst the news of Nintendo losing $926 million for the first half of its financial years is an underlying tone that Nintendo could perish. The sales of the Nintendo Wii, DS have slowed dramatically, compounded by the fact that the Nintendo 3DS, even after a price cut, is not doing as expected. This is leading critics and fanboys alike to claim that the demise of Nintendo is near. What if Nintendo ceases to be?

The gaming industry owes a huge debt to Nintendo. Not only did Nintendo save the industry with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Nintendo revolutionize the home console market. From the simple D-Pad to the current Wii Remote, Nintendo took gaming to another level (and arguably continues to).

The demise of Nintendo would be slow and some say they could survive as a third-party software company in the same vein as Sega. If my memory (and Google) serves me correctly, a reporter asked Nintendo’s President, Iwata if they would ever consider being a software only company to which he replied "If Nintendo were to be forced out of the home console market, we will drop out of gaming altogether." This means no more Mario, no more Zelda and the end of a major innovation factory in gaming.

No other company has innovated or pushed gaming to new heights like Nintendo. The end of Nintendo almost means the end of gaming as we know it. Microsoft, Sony and older competitors of Nintendo like Sega competed through graphic fidelity but I will argue Nintendo never has. Instead, Nintendo competed with its rivals through gameplay experiences, many of which are the standards we have today. When a great platformer game is released and is called a “Mario-clone”, that is high praise in the gaming industry because Mario games serve as the gold standard. Nintendo has multiple game genres for which their games act as standards, how many companies can claim that?

There is no doubt that Nintendo has its fair share of failures, but for every failure there are two or more successes. It is from these successes that industry grows, as Nintendo’s success (more than any company) is shared by all. No Wii, equals no Kinect or Move. No N64 controller equals no analog sticks. No Nintendo equals no innovation.