Stop, STOP! I know you are typing out some angry comment right now but hear me out. I'm not hating but rather wanted to see what others thought.

So it seems that Nintendo home consoles have lately become just a way for people to play Nintendo games. Nintendo tried to bring over the so called "hardcore" gamers to the Wii U with 3rd party support while still holding on to the Nintendo fans, but it failed. And with the looming release of the PS4 and nextbox, it seems that the Wii U will become a second or third console when Nintendo games are released and the price drops somewhat. This case was similar for the Wii where initially it sold for the amazing motion controls, but later on people really only bought software that was released by Nintendo and used it to as a secondary console to only play Nintendo games. In the end everyone just wants to play the fun Nintendo games.

We have also seen that whatever the Wii did in terms of mechanics, the PS3 and 360 could easily emulate later on in their life cycle with a few peripherals, i.e. Move and Kinect. We are seeing something similar with the PS4 and potentially nextbox where the dual screen technology that Nintendo brought in the gamepad could be replicated by the Vita and smartglass. On top of that the PS4 at least appears to be much more technically capable than the Wii U, which will likely be the case for the nextbox as well. Nintendo's online services are also lagging behind Live and PSN. So in essesnce the Wii U isn't doing anything completely unique from the hardware side of things. Again, it is the software from NINTENDO that people want.

So the final point is: If people are only buying Nintendo's consoles to only really play Nintendo games, and if the console itself is lagging behind competing platforms, wouldn't it just be better for us, the gamers if Nintendo became software only? Then that would mean that we wouldn't have to buy Nintendo platforms only to play Nintendo games while playing the big AAA games on other platforms. It would also mean that Nintendo could potentially reach a larger audience, because they could sell their software to people who may have been unwilling to buy a new platform just to play a specific game but would pick the game up if it was in their platform. Of course they would still have the Nintendo fans buying their games still, just on different consoles.

Now the caviats. Firstly it probably doesn't make much sense from a business perspective to stop selling consoles if they are profitable, which was the case for the Wii. They made a lot of profit on hardware alone. But this isn't the case for the Wii U where it is apparently being sold at a loss, so Nintendo are losing money on HW atm. Also, I suppose we could say the opposite to the above argument where Nintendo has all the 3rd party support the other consoles have as well as their own 1st party. This would theoretically be the ULTIMATE console because Nintendo's 1st party has no competition. And this is what Nintendo wanted to do with the Wii U. But it isn't working. 3rd parties just aren't impressed with Nintendo's platform because it doesn't seem to be matching their vision of what they want from next gen asNintendo didn't make a platform powerful enough. I know there have been instances in the past where Nintendo did release powerful consoles (i.e. Gamecube), but even then they didn't find much success. Your guess is as good as mine on that, but we see that either way isn't working out. So really again software only would be solution to this problem.

What do you think?

....close thread.

The problem is, a lot of Nintendo games are designed with specific kinds of hardware in mind. The most notable example is stuff like Super Mario 64, which would have been virtually unplayable on a Saturn or original PlayStation controller. So if Nintendo went software only, we'd see a decline in the creativity and quality of Nintendo products.

Would it be worth getting Nintendo on your third party friendly platform if it meant sacrificing what makes Nintendo games capable of moving hardware single-handedly?

No, without nintendo's somewhat unique ideas (these would be ''conditioned'') the 2nd game crash would have come a lot sooner. The gaming industry (i hate to use those words) needs nintendo more than they think, even if you are an ''android casual'' or a ''FPS/CoD casual'' or a PC gamer, i feel weird to say that we need nintendo, without nintendo (not like if they never existed, like if they became third party tomorrow) the videogame industry, videogames in general would be a lot different; it's something you can see for yourself right now if you check any anti/notverycloseto nintendo company. For real, see for yourself and then come and tell me you are proud of what you see... Is nintendo hardware what keeps nintendo software alive, and nintendo software is (or at least, it's a great part of) what keeps this industry alive.

I do hate it when they say Nintendo hardware is lagging behind. In the graphical dept yes, but for pure innovation, Nintendo always build their hardware with the emphasis on the gamer having fun and interaction. I for one think the Wii was one of the best things that has happened to gaming, it reinvigorated an industry that was in danger of becoming stale, and really forced Microsoft and Sony to step up their game. I dont want a console that only has graphical enhancements every gen, i want different ways to play and Nintendo still support the dying trend that is local multiplayer.

No way. I don't want to buy expensive and unreliable hardware. I like Nintendo SW a lot more, but I like Nintendo HW, too. Probably the same for the majority of Nintendo customers.

I actually agree with this. And it goes along with my thoughts. As for the comment above me I say why would nintendo's quality degrade by releasing it on other platforms? They will only have to design it for 2 platforms namely the Xbox and PS4. Considering both will be similiar to develop for i cant imagine it being too dificult especially for someone like nintendo.

Nope. Competence in the hardware department is what pushes this industry forward.

Besides, I'm a xbox player, but don't tell me this does not look HORRIBLE:

Nintendo is very good making software, portables and controllers. They aren't very good making console hardware, though. They could stick to portable gaming and help design interface and controller tech for other companies as well as developing games for all platforms. It will be a sad day indeed when they stop making consoles, but I don't think they can keep up with the times any longer.

LOL How?  They added dual analogs very quickly, and I have played that game using the directionals on an xperia play with no problems whatsoever.  

IMO, Nintendo controlers have always been a complete mess with the exception of the Wii, Wii U considering those ones are debatable.