One thing being missed here is that Nintendo is a very conservative company. The idea that you spend money to make money, at least in the context of losing money to potentially make a profit at some future indeterminate point is very much a Western(and especially American) corporate mindset. Microsoft almost certainly would have localized Xenoblade, heck they funded Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Tales of Vesperia, etc and likely lost money(and expected to) on all of those, for the longshot of making the 360 relevent in Japan. And while they failed, one could argue that they still succeeded in inflicting enough chaos on the Japanese console market during the PS2-PS3 transition to help permanently cripple a large portion of the Japanese console RPG market. And to the extent that hurt Sony a whole lot more than them, I think one could argue that it was still worth it.
But Microsoft has still lost money, even if it managed to cost its competitors more which they could less afford to lose, and Microsoft and still losing money from the games division. MS can afford that sort of attritional warfare. Nintendo cannot. Nintendo has played its cards very conservatively, and as a result even during the worst periods in its history it managed to limit its losses. The WiiU is Nintendo's worse selling console showing a 90% decline from the Wii, the 3DS is showing a 67% decline from the DS, but Nintendo is returning to profitability. Did Nintendo's tactics perhaps prevent them from exploiting their Wii success as much as they might have? Sure. But they also prevented the failures which followed from crippling the company.
US firms by contrast are burdened by so much debt that a major failure can set off a chain reaction toppling the whole firm. And given saving rates in Japan, the long-term economic trajectory and the deflationary environment, borrowing is a really bad idea.
Nintendo is Nintendo, and that means conservative. What we heard in this interview is evidence of the attitude that has made Nintendo often frustrating but also ensured it is always there,