That's not true. Games have to turn a profit to be worth the trouble. Have to.
I think you missed the point I was trying to make. I'll explain it again and hopefully this time you will understand. Nintendo ALREADY put in the investment for these games to be made, yet they ONLY released them in Japan. I'm going on the assumption they were unprofitable, or perhaps only broke even at best because sales were under 100k, but I don't know how much it cost them to make them or how much money they've made from the sales.
With that being said, my point is that even if Nintendo won't profit by bringing those games over here, they can at least CUT THEIR LOSSES and so even if they aren't able to make the games profitable, at least they can reduce the loss and that would still be worth the trouble.
Now do you see what I'm saying? The games are already done. Whether the investment was profitable or unprofitable, I don't really know, but Nintendo has only released these games in Japan so they didn't even have a fair chance to reach their full potential. Maybe in western markets their performance would have been better?
Once again let me say this: even if bringing these games over here doesn't make the entire investment profitable, as long as they would make enough money to overcome the localization costs it would still be worth Nintendo's trouble, because even if they don't make the entire investment profitable, they would still at least mitigate the losses. Do you see what I'm saying? As long as they sell well enough to make back the localization costs then its worth it. And I think that is VERY MUCH doable.