basically what ur saying is release $400-500 hardware and spend 100's of millions trying to win over the PS/XB audience. in my opinion that's the exact opposite of what they need to do.

I'm OK with Nintendo hardware being weaker than the competition because i know a lot of people with other consoles so I can casually play their games to see what I'm missing out or make my own PC.

But if their hardware is going to be weaker, it shouldn't have a version priced more than 300$ at launch.

Cause they are afraid of the sales. Even though the wiiu is also selling low, if you look at the wii + ds, they sold like hot cakes and they were the weakest devices in their respective generation...Heck, even the 3ds is selling a lot better than the vita and its a much weaker handheld so idk if they will go for power again tbh just cause the wiiu isn't selling well.

I don't think they will make a traditional console after Wii U unfortunately. Fusion platform is next and that will basically just have a way to play the handheld games on your TV (which by 2016 you should have a handheld capable of Wii U type graphics).

IF they were going to route of a new console, this is what I'd suggest.

- They need a TWO year headstart, not just one. Nintendo takes basically a year to get settled into a new console, the extra year would guarantee them a sizeable userbase of at least 15 million.

- It has to compete with the Playstation FIVE not the PS4. If they just make a PS4-type console 3-4 years after the PS4, no one but the Wii U audience will buy it. Everyone else will have a PS4/X1 which by then will be cheaper and have hundreds of games available. Needs to be notably better hardware than the PS4.

- Needs to be built for the US market/developers needs first. That means no weird emphasis on making the system as small/power efficient as humanely possible and ending up with an expensive (but underpowered) chipset. Japan doesn't buy consoles so stop making consoles with what you think they want. It should be designed to the tastes of the West.

- I'd be open to controller innovation, but not as a sole gimmick to sell systems with and not an expensive controller.

- I'd perhaps consider waiving third party licensing fees for developers that provide strong support from day 1 at least for their first 3-4 titles.

After just one failure? GC, and in lesser extent N64 were also failures. Descreasing sales and support from SNES on to now. Sure you can say the Wii broke the mold of decline, but that's because it reached beyond the usual audience. And even then with that extra audience, the support was low.

So even with the Wii support declined, though sales didn't. The trend simply went on with the Wii U.

Fusion or something like it makes sense because Nintendo clearly doesn't believe in 3rd party support anymore and 3rd parties don't believe in Nintendo either.

With the Handheld / console fusion, they can push with all their teams - no more cross support. And with full First party support, they wouldn't need to depend on western 3rd party. With just Japanese 3rd support alone, which would automatically come since Japen is now handheld, they could build a very strong platform without even any western support. Which is pretty much gone anyway.

A Fusion concept would almost be a generation in itself.

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What reason is there to think Nintendo stil believes in a traditional Home console?

Compare the support between GC and Wii U. GC at least had the excuse that Nintendo tried to push it with seeking out 3rd parties. What excuse can we seek with the Wii U? We didn't try at all, would the Wii U's motto

They haven't just given up on the Wii U. This has every sign they gave up on most of the now dominant western 3rd party support for their home console business.

With what actions could they regain western support? Power is no reason (proven by GC), having a long gaming history doesn't matter and even uniqueness failed also (proven by Wii).

The only reason would be big, big money. Buying back either an audience, support or both at the same time. Neither is likely to happen, because Nintendo is losing money big time. Iwata or any other Nintendo president cannot sell that to the shareholders.

Some kind of Fusion idea would the best and cheapest solution to their big problems (and they are big). Having a traditional home console isn't.

Fusion console as some others are saying, that way we'll get more diversity in the first party titles.

I've always felt though if the GameCube launched a year earlier it would've done a lot better.

It got lost in the mix and became labelled as basically the "third wheel" console by giving Sony such a large headstart (that they exploited very well) and then also having to arrive next to the XBox, which negated a lot of things that made the GCN better than the PS2 (better chipset, easier to program for ... XBox had both of those things going for it too).

But yeah Fusion is probably next. They are done with the traditional "big box" home console concept. It's a concept effectively dead in Japan and Nintendo has no support in the West anymore. 

Cuz the gamecube sold badly

XBox had better specs than the GCN. The last time Nintendo has the most powerful console was the Super NES. That was more powerful than the Genesis and Turbo Grafx 16, even though they gimped the CPU a bit. 

Their next system should be a PS4 with 16GB of RAM, 12 to 16 2.4GHZ x86 cores and a radeon 290X level GPU. The system should ship with a wiimote plus and a redesigned gamecube controller. Launch it with Zelda or Smash and a $250 price point and pray for a miracle. After getting to grips with HD on the Wii U they should transition much better to the newer machine. Totally wild guess but that's all I can think of.