Does Nintendo suck at making "Core gamer" consoles?

[Shadow1980]

No. It's just that they don't need to make conventional consoles anymore. They've been doing their own thing for a long while now, and it's worked out for them for the most part (there was the Wii U flopping). People buy Nintendo systems mainly to play Nintendo games, and Nintendo is still popular and culturally relevant enough to where their systems and games will sell very well. The Switch line is essentially guaranteed to sell 100M+ units each generation so long as Nintendo has the games and the marketing savvy.

Also, form factor aside, the Switch is probably their most conventional system to date. Playing one on the TV doesn't feel all that dissimilar from playing on PS or Xbox (that Pro controller is fantastic). It' just that it's lack of horsepower means third parties were less likely to release big AAA titles for it. And again, that relative lack of third-party AAA games was most certainly not to the Switch's detriment. It became the #3 console ever almost entirely on the basis of Nintendo's first-party output. The attach rates for some of the top-selling Switch games are probably the envy of the industry.

But as a hypothetical, if they did decide to make another conventional console (say, in a what-if scenario where MS exits the market, giving Nintendo room to fill the gap), I'm sure they'd do quite well with it if they put their minds to it. They made really good conventional consoles in the past, so I'm sure they'd be able to do so again. The only reason they're stopped making conventional consoles in the first place is because they miscalculated when they made the N64 cartridge-based, a decision that ultimately led to Sony dominating for two generation straight, forcing Nintendo to change strategy. They still make good-quality hardware, and I'm sure if they made a new conventional console they'd have the horsepower to attract all the big third-party AAA games. The only thing they'd need to do is bring their online system up to par with that of PS & Xbox, i.e., a proper friends list system, a proper matchmaking system, and preferably also trophy/achievement system. I tried playing Mario Kart 8 online with a friend some months ago and it was a messy, clunky system.