Okay, this is a serious question and it is not directed towards a single Nintendo home console, but rather their entire home console business. How can they come out on top consistently over their competitors at the end of a given generation?
There are two possibilities that come up, which would be the following:
-Make a console with an "innovation" (or gimmick as many like to call it), sacrificing graphical fidelity: An example of this is the Wii and it was a resounding success. But the problem with this is that Nintendo were not able to replicate its success with the Wii U, which tried the exact same thing with the tablet controller. This led many to believe that the Wii was simply a one time lucky break for Nintendo, a "right place at the right time" console.
-Make a console that is on par with the competitors in terms of power, sacrificing gimmicks: This worked for them back during the SNES days, but again they were not able to replicate this success with the N64 and Gamecube, which were both strong but lagged behind in sales compared to the PS consoles.
On top of this, Nintendo has absolutely abysmal 3rd party support which make up the majority of a console's library of games. It should be clear however that every gen there is a handful of Nintendo faithfuls who will buy their home console no matter what route Nintendo choose to take, or the amount of 3rd party support they get, perhaps more than any other console manufacturer. But these people are not enough to make Nintendo win the console race.
So the question is, what strategies can Nintendo employ to win when neither putting in gimmicks nor making the strongest console guarantee them a victory in the console race?
