I think XBox 2 will be out by 2018 at the latest. Which means Sony can't wait two years doing nothing. 

Nintendo needs to compete and new hardware needs to bring something new to the table. If its just going to be another PS4 ... then why not buy a PS4? It will have like 2000+ games by then and several price drops by then and a huge community of users. 

Even the Wii, while it wasn't a hardware upgrade graphically was a huge innovation on the controller side. 

NX cannot just be a PS4 released 4 years late with Nintendo games as the hook. That just isn't enough to excite the regular market. 

I think the best thing could do is destroy the traditional hardware console/handheld model. 5 year cycles? Out the window. Seperate libraries for handheld and console? Out the window. Stuck with the same hardware for 5 years? Out the window. Just like the Wiimote threw a lot of ideas about the traditional controller out the window, I think Nintendo should look at the game system itself and throw a lot of these rules out the window. 

The only way the "we're releasing a system that's only about as powerful as the market leading system released several years ago" approach works is if you have a ground breaking, earth shattering controller that changes everything and I don't think Nintendo has that. 

What in the wide world makes you think the Xbox2 will be out so soon? I just don't see any evidence for this.

Alright you've got me. A PS4 level NX won't turn any of the casuals' heads. I guess we had better up that to be a future-proof state of the art console for 2017.

Why does there need to be one console? Is there one iPad? Or one Macintosh computer? Or one iPhone?

I think Nintendo needs to start asking some questions like this which push them outside the box. Because "inside the box" they are very easy to compete with. If Nintendo is just going to bring another outdated-when-its-released console to the table .... lets be honest ... this is very simple for MS and Sony to compete with. 

Even the GameCube could have routed the PS2 with a 2 year head start, let alone a 4 year head start. 

I say change the rules. NX has multiple hardware factors, if graphics are important to you because you already own a PS4 and aren't going to pay another $250+ for a similar system .... then there's a high end NX. If you just like portable gaming (Mr. Japan), there's portable NX. If you want to play some damn Mario Kart and Splatoon and don't want to ever pay more than $200 for a Nintendo console, there can be a micro-console NX (same chip as the portable) for you which is very cheap (sub $200 perhaps). 

I'd enable Android app support so you can also play Android apps on all devices. High end NX has x86 architecture for ease of porting from high end PC games. Nintendo's games work on every model, they just scale the graphics up or down. Lower-end portable centric games like the ones Japanese 3rd parties make can run on all devices too. It'd just probably be the really high end Western third party games that you need the high end console for, and not everyone needs that or they can pay more for that. That's fair IMO. 

Beyond that, I'd have more frequent hardware refreshes. NX 4K in 2018 or 2019, why not. I'd make the home consoles modular so you can simply upgrade them if you already have a previous model or allow the cloud sharing/supplemental power add-on principal they patented. I think a new hardware model can arise and become popular, a lot of the "rules" of the game hardware market stem from the 80s/90s, when the market was largely young boys who couldn't afford their own video games and had to rely on mom/dad to buy them on Christmas/birthdays. 

Today we live in a geek culture where adults buy the majority of video games, even Nintendo stuff I'd say adults are actually the ones buying the majority of their hardware/software. This is an audience that makes their own money and is highly enthusiastic about what they love. It's time to stop treating everyone like kids because the 32X flopped 21 years ago. 

I agree with the vast majority of what you just said. Your ideas are exactly what Nintendo needs right now.

Thanks. 

Make the most powerful and most compelling console and better 3rd party relations

1-I make so that the NX releases ASAP (with a 6 month previous announement) with the highest specs possible for a 300/400$ device;
2-I close 50 people in a room for one day telling them that the one that'll give me the best name for a console non-related to "Wii" will win 10000$;
3-I tell to the Zelda development team that I want Zelad U to be released on Wii U ONE MONTH before the NX and that I want a port with some improvements on the day of the release of the NX, also who owns a copy of Zelda U on Wii U and registers it on the new account system can download a digital version of Zelda U on NX for a cheaper price, exclusively for the 5 months following the NX launch for 30$, later on for 50$;
4-I tell the 3D Mario developmnet team that I want a full 3D Mario game on the launch date of NX, if possible it should be Galaxy 3, if not then they'll have to develop Galaxy 3 for the 4th year of life of the NX;
5-I give some $$$ at Retro and make so that they split into 2 or more development teams, one of which has to start developing Metroid Prime 4 for either the 2nd or the 3rd year of NX;
6-I tell Next Level Games to leave Federation Force and to start now a 2D Metroid game that'll be released in the 2nd year of life of the NX;
7-I contact the developers of Rocket League and ask them to work on a full on shooting/sports game using as the basis what was made of Federation Force until now but with the name: "Shooter League";
8-I acquire the Bayonetta IP from Platinum Games signing a contract that states that they'll always have a part in the development of the games for the Bayonetta series until their company can afford to do so;
9- I give development kits to Ubisoft, EA, Activision, Bethesda and Rockstar Games asking either to make on par games with those on the other consoles or simply to make their games exclusive for other platforms;
10-I give Ubisoft funds to make Red Steel 3 an NX exclusive;
11-I give Activision funds to make a StarTropics sequel in co-development with Nintendo and Mr. Takeda;
12-I give EA funds to make a new Mario Strikers game in co-development with Nintendo;
13-change on my first day at Nintendo the youtube policies of the company, I also make shure to send an apology letter to most of the YouTubers that argued against the crazy previous polices such as PewDiePie and AngryJoe;
14-I try to buy Capcom or at least Megaman;
15- I make shure DeNA publishes a mobile Mario game and an AC game, both free to play and both with in-game purchases;
16-I ask HAL Laboratory to work on a 3D Platformer for Kirby while also working on Smash 5 in collaboration with Bandai Namco;
17-I ask Koei Tecmo to co-develop with Intelligent Systems on a brand new FE game in the key of the Dynasty Warriors games;
18- I buy Sin'en, give them a lot fo money and make them the first European Nintendo development team, from now on they'll have to work on the F-Zero games;
19-After a few years I try to buy Sonic/SEGA

You know the other thing I'd look at? Movie franchises. I'd try to lock down a few of them, even cheap ones for 10-20 years.

Bond would be my ideal one, but if you can't get that I'd look at IP like

Mission: Impossible
Rocky (could use these characters in a Punch-Out! game too)
Scarface
Fast & The Furious
Jurassic Park/World
Tolkien/LOTR

I'm not sure which of these would be available, but I'd reckon you could grab one or two for cheap.

Such fragmentation would confuse a lot of people like PC gaming would. Nintendo would at least need to make sure to the consumers that high end games that require the power of the supposed console version of NX be made explicit ... 

And the refreshes would need to stop too when Nintendo decides to make their games not compatible with the majority of the NX platforms too ... 

Are PC gamers really confused? PC gaming has had a huge resurgance in the past 6-7 years. 

Plenty of people use platforms like iOS/Android every day with constantly upgrading hardware. 

And upgrading a standard console can be 100000x easier than PC as it could literally just be like plug and play too without anywhere near the fragmentation, unlike a PC, there wouldn't be like 20 different GPUs, different CPUs, varying amounts of RAM, etc. etc. 

Beyond that I think all the core Nintendo games could play on all the NX variants. It's just if you want the really high end PC ports ... then you should be willing to pay more for that. Which is fair. 

Nintendo games could scale for a long time though, I get the feeling they'd be happy making games that are basically of Wii U fidelity, and then just having higher resolution versions (even 4K) with a few added graphical effects for higher end models. 

I think it's time to move on from this assumption that consumers are so stupid that they can't make heads or tails of any upgrade. Like I said the previous hardware model was based on the 80s/90s when most consumers were little boys or dimwitted parents who could barely use a TV remote.  

Today's video game audience is mostly tech literate adults (even Nintendo's audience ... I've never seen a single kid buying an Amiibo, it's all grown ass men) with their own money. They don't need to wait for mom and dad to buy them a new system and can figure out the concept of upgrading hardware without much fuss. Even kids today are more tech savvy.