What I gather is that Nintendo is growing frustrated with trying to sell consoles. Aside from the Wii era they have been in tough with consoles for 15 years now and it's finally starting to burn them financially.

Truth is the market for a "family friendly" console simply isn't there anymore. The console market is driven by people who want something more along the lines of what Sony/MS offer, not Nintendo's model of basically a modernized N64 every gen.

The Wii was just a freak success, not a sustainable business model in the long run. 

Maybe a Steam-meets-Netflix type service might be under consideration? One where the consumer doesn't have to pay for any hardware or just a moderate cost? 

Introducing, the Nintendo Phone, powered by Android. They can release  an eShop/Virtual Console game app that will work on the Nintendo Phone and Android Market. The difference? Quantity and Quality. Have the most amount and the best games on the Nintendo Phones and release a few on the Android Market.

Its a compounding problem, less handhled sales means less softwae sales.  Less console sales measn less software.

No matter how good their software, it measn nothing if they cant sale hardware.

Having a revenue stream like ios and android eliminates then needing to build a user base, and they can instently sale to a user base of +Billion people.  

Without the issue of hardware, i could see Ninty achiving a new golden age.

I really now think Wii U is their last traditional home console. They won't go third party, but I think they are looking now at ways to offer their games to consumers in a very different way.

The home console is now I think strictly the territory of higher end game experiences ... people have their smartphones for short/cute/casual game sessions, so for home consoles they want something different ... big experiences on a 50 inch screen, that's why PS4/XB1 are doing so well. 

There is no market left for anything in between hardware wise. 

That arguement is completely false. Just look at the indies using Unity.  Small teams able to produce high quality games across many platforms on a shoe string budget.  Just imagine what Nintendo could do with their resources.

Read the rules about name calling, k.  Enforcing the rules isn't an emotional reaction.

Malstrom said it best:

"It’s time for Nintendo to return to the Wii / NES / Atari 2600 style of consoles and abandon the N64/ Gamecube / Wii U of consoles. The Wii and Wii U are like two polar opposites: Wii and Anti-Wii."

Enough is enough, Nintendo. The hardcore gamer, niche-style Gamecube type stuff that the Wii U mainly consists of, is simply NOT going to work. It didn't work in 2001 when the economy was in much better shape, and it sure as hell won't work during a recession, when people are reluctant to spend money on video games. Nintendo HAS to smarten up and return to the roots that made NES and Wii such a success. (and again, Wii U is NOTHING like the Wii, at least in basic philosophy. It is far more similar to Gamecube). They MUST go back to making the arcade-type simple to pick up and play games (as well as ground breaking games like Wii Fit) that appeals to a mass market audience, non gamers, and lapsed gamers. To me and many others, this strategy seems obvious, but Nintendo just won't seem to budge from the failure of its new Wii U philosophies.

Conventional wisdom (at least on this website) is that somehow this HUGE mass of casual gamers all somehow decided to leave Nintendo at once. But what the REAL answer is that it is Nintendo who left THEM with their regression back to the hardcore style of games that populate Wii U. If these people somehow all left Nintendo, Just Dance Wii would not have sold over a million copies in December. These people ARE still there, and they are hungry for new games, REAL games, not just the budget crap on smartphones. These people can see quality, and care about quality as much as anyone else.. If anything, they are probably BETTER at seeing quality than the hardcore, as the hardcore tends to run out and pick up any game that looks pretty and has a lot of blood and gore in the game..

But I digress.. Nintendo NEEDS to stop trying to appeal to the hardcore, and return to the mass market, blue ocean games that brought them such success. If Nintendo is truly not sharp enough to figure out that this is the solution, or they KNOW what to do but are simply too stubborn to implement it (as I fear might be the case with them), then all I can say is that they deserve whatever fate awaits them.

I don't think it's that simple. 

Besides NSMBU, Mario 3D World, Wii Party U, Wii Fit U, LEGO City, Nintendo Land, NES Remix, Wii Sports Club, Sing Party, and even Pikmin 3 are relatively easy to pick up and play games. It's not like Nintendo is pushing a library of 10 Metroid Prime games. 

The truth is I think smartphones/tablets have changed how consumers look at everything. They now get that simple NES-style game fix with games like Candy Crush and Angry Birds on smartphones. 

So what the home console is actually has swung back in Sony/MS' favor ... to high end HD game consoles for big screen TVs ... that's why the PS4/XB1 are doing so well even with fairly mediocre software lineups.

But you can even see for Sony, Sony can't sell games like Tearaway and Puppeteer and LBP Karting any more ... cartoony games on consoles seem to be in very, very tough. Again to me it seems like consumers are getting their fill of that type game on their smartphone for free, home console has now become where they go to to play Call of Duty, Battlefield, Uncharted, Halo, etc. ... those type of big screen experiences. 

And you should look at what the majority of the Indie games are... Hardly any of them are very demanding in hardware... And even with that, look at how hard it is for Nintendo just to make games in HD for the wiiU with their own hardware/OS.. If you have seen any of the Nintendo Directs, at least 3 of them have said that blah game has been delayed cause moving into the HD generation is harder than we thought so "Please Understand"... Now think of how bad that would be for Nintendo on hardware/OS they don't even know how to use...

And there have been worse things called in this site without people being reported so I think that is emotional but that is a valid defensive excuse as well

Too late.

The fact that they are still thinking doesn't bode well.

Good point, My ass is waiting and drooling at the thoughs of PS5 Oled UHD gaming.

Tearaway and Puppeteer and LBP Karting can sale just not at full price, some game belong on PSN for 29.99