Nintendo's dedication to profitability, while making them conservative on the bleeding-edge-hardware scale, is actually one of the things that enables them to have such a dedication to quality and inventiveness. It's ironic, but Nintendo's ability to remain profitable throughout even the GC generation means that they don't live hand-to-mouth, but can afford to develop good, healthy, long-term practices in videogaming and possibly weather any future rough patches along the way.