if you're a fan of Nintendo at all, I think we all need to have a talk and realize something. Throw away all speculation of what the NX will be or how powerful or how much 3rd party it will get. Forget talks of acquisitions or hardware that docks or hardware that's unified or whatever. There's something much more broad that needs to be addressed: whatever the NX is, it MUST succeed. It can't fail. If it does, that's it.
Now that obviously comes with some caveats. Obviously, "that's it" doesn't mean that's it for Nintendo. Frankly, Nintendo is making moves to where it will be successful with or without the NX. And there's the issue. If the NX fails, that's it for Nintendo as a company who's primary audience is people like us. Consoles are on the way out, and if the NX fails, Nintendo will be in a position where it just won't be financially viable to try it again. And honestly, by that point, I can see them putting all their eggs into the mobile basket, possibly making an Android-based micro console, because there won't be a console basket to put in. Nintendo would 100% change their focus to a different demographic that what it currently targets.
So even if the NX isn't what we all want, I hope it's at least popular enough to sell well. Even if it's another console like the Wii which targets casuals, the Wii at least still had games that catered to people like us. If the NX fails, I don't see Nintendo doing that still. I think they will be plenty successful financially because of the way they're increasing their brand, but if that doesn't translate to respectable hardware sales, Nintendo as we love them now, is gone. And while I wouldn't blame them, it would make me sad. I'd rather have the software line up we have with the Wii u than what we would get the generation after the NX failed.
