Chasing MS and Sony down the rabbit hole is a recipe for financial ruin. Reminds me of Kodos from The Simpsons: "They constructed a board with a nail in it, but they won't stop there. They'll construct bigger boards with bigger nails, and then they'll construct a board with a nail in it so large, it will destroy them all..."

Nintendo needs to make a system with modest power so it can sell units for a low price point but still make a profit. Front load some "killer apps" and consumers and third parties will come. Maybe not Rockstar and Bethesda but smaller third parties and independent studios will most certainly come.

Not entirely true they wanted it to be Wii 2 but it was far from Wii 2 in approach, the casual market moved on because the U isn't geared towards them like the Wii was. I'll highlight one example of flawed thinking that most people have when trying to suggest something successful, they always mention the core, this was Nintendo's undoing when creating the U trying to appeal to this group who have been named core by modern gaming outlet's definition. The core group likely already own a Wii U.

Why I say that? The core group by modern definition are actually the smallest group in gaming they buy software more regularly and likely have more than one platform but are a small group in total, a lot of people think the core is what makes Playstation successful it's not, it's the mainstream that does, these are casual and avid gamers (the people who bought the Wii and smart phones weren't casual gamers they were new gamers, casual gamers have been around since forever), those who game on smart phones aren't even casual gamers they're spin off group from the new gamers that emerged from the blue ocean approach. The mainstream just follow what's the in thing to get and most cases stick to that platform for the gen, this is why Vita couldn't hold a candle to the 3DS as well.

On the Wii U it was never Wii 2 from the start in it's approach, it was more GC with Wii branding, an atempt to follow what people are saying to do while doing their own thing and the result is a middle of the road platfom that they didn't know how to handle resulting in it's perfomance. If the platform was actually called Wii 2 for a start that would have cleared up the confusion of the first 2 years among consumers, then actually market the platform and have a low entry point it would have attracted a lot more of the Wii market that's for sure. What keeps Nintendo relevant is them doing things their own way.

Rockstar might. They did release two Wii games and a DS game after all.

Thank you man, this is what I've really been trying to say, and you said it better than I did. Nintendo just needs to make a console that is decent, has the right price, great 1st party games, and a slew of 3rd party games from devs who support Nintendo's cause. Mostly from Japanese devs like Level 5, Square Enix and Sega.

The funny thing is that by asking for a PS4-level console by Nintendo, you are basically asking for them to repeat what they did with Wii U.

The problem is you are counting casuals as some sort of miracle that will help the NX succeed. I don't give a flying fuck about them. I want real games as do many core Nintendo gamers. Wii was a sales sucess yes, but game wise what did it offer to the core gamer compared to a PS3 or  360?

If i want to play casual games i'll play them on my mobile like the casual gamers. Nintendo needs to stop targetting those gamers as they are unstable income.

I am not pinning NX's success of casuals. If they do buy the console, fine. They enjoy games that have good production values and Nintendo has them. Nintendo has already tried to target "Hard core" gamers and it blew up in their face several times. Wii and DS brougnt Nintendo into its second coming. I'm again, not saying NX needs casuals. I dont' care if they come or not. What I AM saying is that NX doesn't need this "hard core" fanbase either because chances are if you're buying a PS or XB for western 3rd party games like GTA, Skyrim, sports games, Mass Effect, Fallout, etc, you don't care about Nintendo's content. That's the truth.

What NX needs to succeed, as I lined out in the OP, is a console that is cheap, has great japanese 3rd and 1st party games and a few western games as well. Because as we all know, consoles are selling piss poor in Japan, handhelds are where it's at. If Nintendo was smart they'd market NX as a handheld first and an option to output to the TV with upgraded graphics, which is what I believe NX will be.

Japan is a huge market there for gaming, Nintendo is the biggest name there right now. They don't focus on 3rd parties to succeed. Where I think NX will shine is if it has like I said, 1st and 3rd party japanese support. It's working for 3DS so far, the best selling console this generation so far. Nintendo really doesn't need these big games to make a splash. They need to be cheap, innovative, and make great software and pump it out at a reasonable pace.

The problem with Nintendo is they can't support the regular gamer on their own.

How many mario spin offs have we seen this gen? way too many. 

Nintendo needs adult games wether they like it or not.  Unless they can suddenly quadriple their output by 4 then they will end up like the Wii U.

Western games from 3rd parties are also a critical requirement for the NX to succeed. Because of Nintendo ducking around for a couple generations a lot of Nintendo only gamers went and bought  a second console and are slowly making that console their primary.  The older I get the lss time I have for multiple consoles so eventually the one fomr the compeittion will win out as it will have more games.

I think in some ways it is just easier for Nintendo to basically give up on the console market and consolidate everything around a portable console which can play games on the TV once in a while. 

By being a portable machine primarily it basically draws a large distinction between the other game platforms and NX. 

Even if the NX was some super powerful home console, it most probably wouldn't get western third party support in the long run, maybe it would get some at the start, but after the publishers see that their games don't sell on it, they would abandon it. Also they would never get Rockstar or Bugthesda support so a super powerful NX wouldn't really change anything.

The reason why western third party developers don't port their games to nintendo consoles is not because they are weak, it's because the audience for their games is not on them.