Of the two, which would you find less desirable?
1.) Nintendo Forced To Go Third Party (next hardware does even worse than Wii U/3DS)
Pros:
No need to buy Nintendo specific hardware to get Nintendo games.
Larger userbases to sell games to.
Cons:
Nintendo would lose a lot of their stature and potentially become just "another third party"
Didn't work out so great for Sega.
Playstation/XBox audience may not take to Nintendo style games as cartoony/family titles aren't exactly tearing it up on Playstation/XBox.
2.) Nintendo is bought out by Apple at some point (ie: their stock price gets too low inviting a take over bid)
Pros:
- Nintendo IP would likely clean up on the iPhone/iPad, thus maintaining Nintendo's central role in the game business.
- Apple could make a more dedicated console style AppleTV with a real Nintendo designed controller. Theoretically that might put Nintendo back on top in the console business.
- Nintendo would have incredible marketing and brand exposure.
Cons:
- Well some other company would own them, so they wouldn't have the same freedom as before.
- Culture would likely have to change as well, as Apple would obviously want influence over corporate decision making.
- While Apple makes gorgeous hardware ... it ain't cheap (relatively anyway).
