You want do discuss the NES one? Dragon's Lair with broken controls, Silver Surfer with broken collisions and insane difficult. And X-men by LJN, where your forced AI partner wouldn't work at all randomly if you choose a character that could shoot (Cyclops, etc). All of them had the "seal", all of them were terribly broken and didn't had the slightest quality.

And let's talk about the peripherals: their own Power Glove, that didn't worked! The Speedboard, a ridiculous cash in with the seal of quality stamped on it!

They never were symbols of quality, protecting their consoles of bad games. As any company, they let anyone do what they want. What the seal means, specially in the light of the crash, it's some rules:

1) The game works on the console it says it should work.

2) Nintendo could refuse to publish the game if it wasn't following some of its rules about its content.

Exactly what Nintendo does today and what Sony and MS does and even Valve with Steam. What happened in the crash with Atari was a whole different situation:

Atari was the publisher for all Atari games. Some unsatisfied Atari programmers, that were paid just dimes for multi-million dollar games, left and started Activision: the world's first indepent publisher. They sued Atari for the right of being able to publish games on their own and won. After that, anyone could do the same. So it created a mass of games that didn't worked or games with sexual content (including rape, like Custer's Revenge). That made the public opinion hate Atari and was one of the things that resulted in the crash.

NES cartridges had a protection to avoid running homebrew games (just like any console has today). So Nintendo would block any game with sexual or improper content or games that didn't worked. Just that. So the families wouldn't be afraid of buying a console anymore for their kids. Sony and MS do the same thing, with different focus, but the same thing. You can see this in action with unlicesed games for NES like Action 52 or Super Noah Ark 3D for SNES. In both cases, the unlicensed cartridged had a slot in their top so you had to fit a licensed cartridge that would allow the unlicensed one to use its chip to circunvent the lock.

Nintendo rules about amount of games published and other things weren't about quality. They were about keeping 3rd parties small and weak so their games would be the big hits and 3rd parties would never have a way to influence them. 3rd parties' answer was to jump to the first newcomer and give them all the support and allowing it to dominate the market.

You think most Splinter Cell or Tranditional fighting game fans (Tekken, Street FIghter, Dead or Alive etc) ran out to buy a wii U? Why? 

its like asking why Final Fantasy performs weaker on Xbox systems, the fanbase isn't truly there to begin with.

Funny thing is, I personally know way more "kids" that want nothing to do with Nintendo and only want to play Xbox/PS shooters all day. Meanwhile... I'm in the 30+yr old demographic and all of my friends play Nintendo consoles more than anything else. Nostalgia is a powerful thing! While many of the games are certainly more colorful, N keeps pulling me back because more frequently the games offer something new game play wise

We've been through this lol. Its 90% Nintendo.

The people who consume AC annually aren't picking up a Nintendo system because it doesn't serve the franchise the same way PS4/X1 does, its not a true successor to the consoles they've been playing for the last 7 years, so they're in no hurry to pick up a Wii U. Beyond that It is not the responsibility of core Nintendo fans to pretend to like games they're not interested in.

Third parties have no reason to support the wii U as it doesn't have the compelling hardware which will shape the landscape for the 6 year, nor does it have the huge userbase ( like the wii) whom they could easily rely on even if attach rates are lower then PS4/X1. From conception alone Nintendo put their system outside of the taste range of most of the core demographics who their games appeal to. If someone announces a super gimped system and you audience care about graphics and budget etc, you're not gonna expect them to run to this gimped console.

It is Nintendo responsibility to shape the perception of their hardware through marketing and 3rd party collaborations, to design the hardware so it appeals to a broad range of people, to ready software to get their system off to a good start. Whats funny is that Nintendo has collaborated this gen probably more then Sony and Microsoft, but its been on all the wrong projects :/

Exactly. Its nothing to do with age, its just a case of taste. If anything the younger generations are less likely to be into Nintendo because they weren't hear for the glory days (NES-SNES). If you started gaming during the PS2 generation you probably had a PS2 and nothing else, if you started last gen Its highly likely PS3/360 or PC ended up being your main platform by 2010.

But that's the thing, the fanbase WON'T be there if these games don't ever release on the console.

You can't just say "Oh that game didn't sell because the fanbase isn't there" because I feel as though that adds to my comment's point which was that there always seems to be an excuse made for when a third party game doesn't sell on a Nintendo console.

The point of my comment is that the games like Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Injustice: Gods Among us were good versions on the Wii U and came out at the same time as the others and still sold badly, which immediately contradicts whenever people say the usual "Oh it was a gimped version or a late port", or something along those lines.

Edit: I don't know what I did but my reply got really mixed up with some quotes. Sorry about that.

It's actually worse because it creates instant distrust in future titles from that developer/publisher. The distrust stacks over time and releases and in the end many consumers won't even look at the third party titles anymore because they know that version ain't worth it - even if that game is actually great and not gimped in any way at all. Which is precisely why few prople really care about third party releases on the Wii U

Yesp we're in agreement :)

You are mixing what a marketing department does in a specific company with the concept of marketing. I have a degree on this.

Besides, thats not what i said. I said both are possible. I assume that what you are talking about are companies with clear defined segments they work in. How else would R&D know what to work on? Make fridges or make match sticks? The definition of that segment is marketing on the strategic level. Your common marketing department works on it in a tactical level.

As a customer, I have no obligation to third paries, Nintendo, or otherwise. I'll buy games like Watch Dogs when I want, not after 6 whole months, and with a inferior experience to boot.

I design website templates and sell them online. If I want many sales, I have to work my ass off to achieve it. I have to make my customer base really WANT my product. I have only myself to blame if things go bad.

Seriously, this industry is like it's being run by 5 year olds...