Why do people think that Nintendo could go or should go third-party?

[Armour1]

zorg1000 said:

Soundwave said:

The reason this idea is persistent is aside from a few years with the Wii where they added casuals for a little while, they have been losing marketshare ever since the NES.

NES - 63 mill
SNES - 49 mill
N64 - 33 mill
GameCube - 22 mill
Wii U - 16-17 mill finish (projected)

 

The OP never says anything specifically about home consoles so the discussion is about Nintendo as a whole, going 3rd party implies no longer making hardware of any sort.

Is it not the prevlent rumor nx a hybrid of both, so the failure of their consoles might just sink their handheld to.  Not that there is any high hope of a new handheld doing well these days.