From Wikipedia:
Howard Cheng, technical director of Nintendo technology development, said the company's goal was to select a "simple RISC architecture" to help speed development of games by making it easier on software developers. IGN reported that the system was "designed from the get-go to attract third-party developers by offering more power at a cheaper price. Nintendo's design doc for the console specifies that cost is of utmost importance, followed by space."[10] Hardware partner ArtX's Vice President Greg Buchner stated that their guiding thought on the console's hardware design was to target the developers rather than the players, and to "look into a crystal ball" and discern "what's going to allow the Miyamoto-sans of the world to develop the best games".[7]
It's interesting that Nintendo had such a different philosophy regarding 3rd parties back then, and the GameCube did receive good 3rd party support. Do you think Nintendo should target 3rd party developers instead of consumers with their next console? And do you think Nintendo would've been better off since the GameCube era if they would've stuck to this target 3rd party developers and "offering more power at a cheaper price" design philosophy?
I think yes to both honestly. Especially since repairing 3rd party relationships will be very difficult now.
