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TheLastStarFighter on 15 April 2014
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UltimateUnknown said:
TheLastStarFighter said:

A more attainable way is to release a system with a cool name, that looks cool, with a few simple new cool features and a solid lineup of titles.  Release it with Mario Galaxy 3 and a mature Zelda, buy a couple western devs to make a racing sim and a shooter and contract Mistwalker to make a FF clone.  Release it all at a solid price and do whatever it takes to ensure 3rd party support is fully behind it, and market it to adults as well as children.  Do that and the system will be competitive.  Not saying on top, but it would have a shot.

The problem with this idea is that this would position Nintendo directly up against Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo would be trying to compete for the same crowd those two companies are competing for. And we have seen time and time again that Nintendo just can't compete for that crowd. The N64 and GC both attempted this, but both were unsuccessful. The only people who bought those consoles were hardcore Nintendo fans, who also bought the Wii and Wii U and will buy any console Nintendo releases to play their games. But as we saw from N64 and GC sales, these hardcore fans are not enough to make them win, which should be obvious.

The only time Nintendo won was when they went after a completely different market than Sony and MS, the parents/grandparents (or casuals). This led to the success of the Wii. But the problem with this market is that it is very volatile and repeating that success is going to be an absolute challenge, as evident from the Wii U.

Sony and MS on the other hand have two sets of audience that do return for every iteration, their own hardcore fans just like Nintendo's who will buy any console each company makes to play their games. But they also have the "mid-core", those who make up the majority of the console's userbase and don't have a strong brand loyalty, but still like to play traditional big name games with friends, i.e. COD, GTA, etc. Any previous attempts by Nintendo in bringing over this mid-core from Sony/MS has not worked and I don't see how it can work in the future without 3rd party and in general a variety of genres in 1st party games that appeal to this audience.

N64 and GC failed in execution, not in Nintendo's ability to compete.  Poor media choices, late launches, poor design, etc plagued them.  A properly designed Nintendo system would fair much better.