That's from the horse's mouth. The horse, of course, being Nintendo. It's from the North American Zelda ad. They have so much baggage in this regard. It's been a bit of a slog. I think they've at least partially escaped the kiddie image though. For sure among gamers. Maybe not as much with your average Joe Lunch Pail and Sally Housecoat. Maybe. IDK. I don't feel I have fingers on this particular pulse. I'm gonna use that as a sig banner though.

What is that from 1987? The world has kinda changed since then, so have Nintendo's demographics. 

In the 80s sure probably 75% of their audience was children all video games were primarily played by children, today closer to 75% of their audience is adults. 

I don't think all that much has changed, on the surface they're still relying on pretty much the same system selling software and they're infamous for censoring or even or even disallowing certain titles or features from e-shop or networks due to it being inappropriate for children. Embracing a form factor that is more than a little reminiscent of the one most widespread among youth and kids won't help in this regard either (tablets and smartphone games are immensely popular among younger customers and gamers).
But it doesn't really matter, what matters is appeal, and appeal seems really good at the moment, as is reflected in the sales.
This image is likely to stick with them, much like the dudebro image of the Xbox, especially since in both instances, the respective companies aren't really doing much to combat it.

How can the "image be consistent" when the majority of their own buyer base is adult?

The image is outdated, and really it's old school PS/XB fans who are behind the curve this time.

It's not 2001 anymore ... Nintendo's audience is not the GameCube/GBA audience anymore ... well it is but they are 24-30 years old now, not 8 years old anymore and they're buying a lot of Switch consoles.

Again look at the US demographic image again



The largest Switch audience are 25-34 year olds in the US, that is the generation that were kids when the N64 was towards the end of its life cycle and the GameCube/GBA era was starting.

Laugh out loud.

Fact is demographics have shifted. You're not a "kids company" anymore when like 70% of your audience base is over the age of 18.

Adults are the primary driver of the Switch, NES Classic, SNES Classic sales. That's just a fact. What the hell does a 10 year old even know about an NES.

What will be interesting is how over time Nintendo will adjust and adapt to this new reality. 

I'd say they're taking a more "For Everyone" approach this time around, as opposed to the Wii U's solely "For Kids" approach. The console doesn't look like a kiddy toy this time around, they got Minecraft and Fortnite on there to appease a good portion of the kids (at least the mid-2010s kids. They're doing nothing for the COD generation). They've got the old-school and family games to appease the over 30 crowd. The one big demographic that they seem to be neglecting, though, is the 2006-2018 PS/Xbox owners. They're slowly bringing over franchises like Bayonetta, modern Doom, etc., but they've got a lot of catching up to do.

I don't think they're trying to go for the most mature image.  Right now they seem to be trying to strike a balance between family-friendly, and... well... this.

https://youtu.be/SChWdprUnzw

I think a lot of the distinction comes from whether you're referring more to the audience or the character of the games themselves. Of crouse, Nintendo still has the highest numbers in BOTH those categories, though as many have sort of alluded to, I don't think the gap between kids to adults on Ninty vs PS4/Xbox platforms is as large as many believe.

I've certainly heard from several adults that own Nintendo platforms (myself included), as many want to revisit their youth and still enjoy their games, and let's face it - many (especially in the 30+ range) are probably well beyond the point in caring about looking "cool". And the reverse is likely also true - of a decent number of kids owning Xbox and PS4 for just that reason (not saying it's the only one of course but likely a factor). Hell almost half the people I play with on Overwatch Xbox seem to be kids..

But yeah, if we're talking the content itself, then obviously Nintendo has far and away more "childlike" and kiddie themed games - though that doesn't mean they can't also be enjoyed by adults. And Nintendo platforms still get a lot of the more "mature" titles, especially these days, so I'm not sure why those seem to get canceled out in the minds of many when there's no shortage of them either.

It's simple changing of demographics.

There's only a certain amount of 5-12 year old kids every generation.

For Nintendo to have a majority children audience that 5-12 year old crowd in the here and now needs to outnumber Nintendo's culminative over 18 audience.

That was easier to do in the days of the N64 and GameCube when Nintendo as a console maker had really only been around for 10-15 years.

Now several more generations of Nintendo game systems have passed and now whatever the kids audience that Nintendo can get in any generation is simply outnumbered by the adult Nintendo fans that combine from the NES, SNES/GB, N64/GBC, GCN/GBA, Wii/DS, Wii U/3DS eras who are now over the age of 18.

Same thing happened with comic books, at one time comics were mainly basically for children and only sold in supermarkets for kids to buy. Eventually though the amount of children who became adults and continued to be fans of comic book characters amassed to a point where they outnumbered the kids and comics began to be sold in comic specific shops tailored to adults. Eventually comics began to get edgier. 

Campy/silly/kids-centric stories but eventually as decades passed, comic book writers realized the majority of the audience was adult and then gradually things like this were no big deal:

Not saying you'll have hyper violent Mario ever, lol, but I could definitely see Nintendo allowing more stuff to go in things like Zelda and Xenoblade and Fire Emblem and more franchises in that vein. Even that Luigi bit with Castlevania in the Smash trailer, lol, that's pretty dark for a "kids company". 

??? Elaborate Please?