See my Apple example above. They lean heavily towards user friendliness and "mom approval" but they still offer modern, functional hardware. The iPhone may not match spec for spec every thing, but it's not like it's 5 years behind either. That's a balanced hardware design, what Nintendo offers is not. 

Nintendo is the one asking people to put up with badly out of date hardware, no other company really operates that way and is successful doing so. 

I also question the Wii's lasting legacy, Zelda BoTW was announced with no motion controls and basically no one complained. No one is ripping down Nintendo's doors for Wii Sports 3 or Wii Fit 3. 

In my opinion, the Wii was really a rip off. Nintendo basically took a GameCube which was a $99 system by that point and charged $250 for a repackaged version of it with a controller, that probably cost $10 a pop to make and was fortunate to hit pay dirt with the motion gaming craze, which had the perfect small window to thrive in before smartphones began offering thousands of games to casuals for 0 dollars in a more convienant form factor. Nintendo fans were asked to put up with SD graphics for six years for really no good reason. 

Even if they wanted to make the Wiimote the center piece of the system, there was no reason for the hardware to be that shitty, $250 was only $50 less than the XBox 360 vanilla system released a full year prior. 

Point remains, I'm fine with Nintendo making accomodations for other audiences, my gripe is that we as experienced gamers or whatever term you want to use (go ahead and make one up) are the ones being asked to make every sacrifice. 

We used to get perfectly reasonable technology in line with the other systems on their day from Nintendo, now basically every aspect of their modern systems are really design first and foremost for beginner/non-gamers. I'm sorry if you don't like the distinction but it clearly exists. 

And basically for all these trade offs, what we're told is "shut up and accept the inferior hardware which is still pretty expensive and accept little to no third party support so we can make our hardware this way to suit this other crowd, but we're giving you Mario and Zelda, you should be happy enough with that."

Well you know what? The NES/SNES/N64/GameCube had Mario and Zelda too, saying "you're getting Zelda aren't you" isn't good enough. 

If Nintendo was genuine in this whole "we're making hardware for everyone" then the system would be legitimately designed for everyone's needs. Which the Wii and Wii U clearly were not, they were designed primarily for a beginner audience and their needs were put first in virtually every design decision, but we got a nunchaku or dual analog for core players, whoopity doo. 

Nintendo is being disingenious in making these kinds of statements. They are not making hardware with "everyone" in mind, they're making hardware very clearly for beginner/casual players in mind, and traditional/experienced players are the ones being asked to sacrifice on their expectations (don't expect good graphics anymore, don't expect great developer support, don't expect good online, don't expect a HDD storage standard, you have to pay extra for a traditional controller, you should be happy with Nintendo Land as your pack-in title, we don't need to give New Super Mario good graphics because casuals don't care about graphics, etc. etc. etc.). These aren't imaginary trade-offs, they are real and tangiable, since Nintendo went this "blue ocean" direction, Nintendo players who are enthusiasts have been asked to sacrifice their expectations while still paying top dollar. 

Every console generation has new gameplay experiences. This idea that "new gameplay experiences" only started with the Wii is a fucking joke, especially when Sony basically did similar ideas a few years earlier with Eye Toy. And you do know previous Nintendo consoles had controller innovations without selling completely outdated hardware, right? 1983-2005 did actually happen last time I checked. 

Or is a console with semi-competent hardware now a trademark of Sony and MS? 

I'm not asking for Nintendo to compete with Neo and Scorpio, I'm just asking for TV performance better than the average GPU from *five* years ago. That is not exactly a high bar. It's not asking for a steak dinner with wine, it's asking for a hamburger that's at least properly cooked. 

So it isn't about offering new types of games and experiences. It's about making a console like Sony and Microsoft.

Every console generation has new gameplay experiences. This idea that "new gameplay experiences" only started with the Wii is a fucking joke, especially when Sony basically did similar ideas a few years earlier with Eye Toy. And you do know previous Nintendo consoles had controller innovations without selling completely outdated hardware, right? 1983-2005 did actually happen last time I checked. 

Or is a console with semi-competent hardware now a trademark of Sony and MS? 

I'm not asking for Nintendo to compete with Neo and Scorpio, I'm just asking for TV performance better than the average GPU from *five* years ago. I'd like something that is a reasonable upgrade on the Wii U if I'm going to pay another $250-$300 after 4 years. That is not exactly a high bar. It's not asking for a steak dinner with wine, it's asking for a hamburger that's at least properly cooked. 

Every console generation has new gameplay experiences. This idea that "new gameplay experiences" only started with the Wii is a fucking joke, especially when Sony basically did similar ideas a few years earlier with Eye Toy. And you do know previous Nintendo consoles had controller innovations without selling completely outdated hardware, right? 1983-2005 did actually happen last time I checked. 

Or is a console with semi-competent hardware now a trademark of Sony and MS? 

I'm not asking for Nintendo to compete with Neo and Scorpio, I'm just asking for TV performance better than the average GPU from *five* years ago. I'd like something that is a reasonable upgrade on the Wii U if I'm going to pay another $250-$300 after 4 years. That is not exactly a high bar. It's not asking for a steak dinner with wine, it's asking for a hamburger that's at least properly cooked. 

I think you have done a very good job describing the " give and take" that Nintendo faces and how its decisions effect its potential customers going forward.  The reality is the NX will EITHER appeal more to the inexperienced gamer or more to the experienced gamer but it will not cannot appeal to them both equally by default  -   It's pretty simple " for every action there is a reaction"