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Soundwave on 06 September 2014
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I don't think Nintendo would go third party willingly, not as long as Iwata/Miyamoto are around.

And perhaps it would be a silly move ... an alliance with say Microsoft could work better, because I don't think MS necessarily wants all the work/headache of being in the game business alone either. So how about a partnership along these lines:

- Nintendo and MS agree to partner, MS agrees to take a secondary role to Nintendo in terms of branding and control. Nintendo gets a 65/35 split of third party licensing revenue and console profit or losses. MS agrees to pay Nintendo a nice large money hat every year of the agreement and to assist with marketing.

- Satoru Iwata is president of all worldwide gaming divisions under the new alliance. Phil Spencer becomes new head of Nintendo of America and unifies NOA + MS Western studios. Works well since both companies (NOA and MS) are across the street from each other in the Seattle area. Reggie Fils Aime is vice president, Ken Lobb works to transition both sides to work together -- perfect fit as he's worked with both Nintendo and MS.

- Hardware going forward will be co-branded, with Nintendo as the lead brand. Nintendo and MS assist each other in hardware design/development.

- Nintendo agrees in return to use Microsoft's online infastructure (XBox Live) and to use Windows 9 mobile as their OS for the next-gen Nintendo portable, bringing MS' struggling mobile OS to a larger new audience aside from just Windows Phones. A big win for Microsoft here, MS doesn't really need the peanut profits from the game business, but they do need increased marketshare for their mobile Windows, getting kids hooked on Windows mobile over iOS and Android would be a big win for them. For Nintendo it saves them time/money from having to develop their OS and having wide functionality for it.

- Nintendo + MS jointly launch next-gen 4K capable machine in fall 2017 (one year ahead of Sony) with Mario + Master Chief + lots of third party support, go on to theoretically dominate Sony.