CoD v Mario, really?

In regards to the question posed at the begining of the thread, No. innovation has always been how Nintendo has differentiated itself from the competition wether be it hardware, software or company policies. The day Nintendo stops innovating is the day the gaming industry declines. the main problem I have with your arguement is that you make it sound like Nintendo listens to everyone's oppinion but there own, hasn't the gaming industries biggest complaint been that nintendo doesn't do enough to listen to and support third parties and instead goes off and does its own thing. We haven't even heard any details about their new console that comes directly from nintendo, meaning we don't have any idea what its going to be like. so its to early to say innovation in there new concole will be there down fall. As for the 3DS, the 3D has always been an opinional feature, why else would the 3D slider be included and games with 3D features still be playable with 3D turned off. the 3D might be it's biggest selling point but it is by far not it's only selling point. Once enough new games are released and maybe a price cut more and more people will start buy them. Also in regards to the negative press about health issues due to the 3DS, do you really think some parents will know or care about it. nintendo has had a seisure warning on a there wii games for awhile now and it doesn't seem to have affected sales at all. the way I see it most people will ignore the warning until there is something in the news about a persons eyesight being permitatly impaired by the 3DS, and alot of parents don't seem to care what their kids play if all the underaged kids playing mature games is anything to go by.

THIS.

Boost more money into Retro and NST, and buy up a few studios.

Grasshopper Manufacture, High Voltage, and Next Level Games should all be Nintendo stuidos right now. 

I know a few people that aren't allowed to get the 3DS due to possible damage to their eyes- I'm  just not sure how widespread the opinion is.

Over the last four years COD has been selling an average of 20m a year.

In terms of longetivity, I bet in 15 years cod will be forgotten, but that's not what they were talking about.

Of course, I am only thinking of comparing it to mario platformers, not every game with mario in it.

This is the reason why the CoD vs Mario debat is so tiring, because the two sides manipulate where the boundies are to compair and are leaving out the fine details. if you compared the sales between mario platformers and the CoD series acrossed all platforms after CoD was released they CoD would win. However, if you widened that scope to every CoD or Mario game every made where mario was a key mascot ie(mario kart, SSB, mario and sonic, mario party, mario sports, etc) then of course mario would crush CoD especially if you include handheld sales as well.

Overall I actually think its a good strategy if the controller rumours are true because it keeps them from competing directly for the same customers/experience between themselves and Sony/Microsoft, it keeps them from competing directly with themselves so they can easily justify having both a Wii and NES 6? on the market at the same time and again it puts both Sony and Microsoft in a bind because it'd make it difficult for them to shoe horn a copy cat replacement into their systems, possibly even harder than Move/Kinect given it would require a fundamental adjustment to the basic DS3/Xbox 360 controller design. The only question now is pretty much 'will it work and will it be compelling like the Wii was?'