This is an insightful post from a poster on another forum:

I think that the goal of the Wii was to act as an entry level platform, not necessarily a "bridge" platform. The next console, whatever it is, will, I think, be aimed to "bridge the gap" so to speak. Nintendo could achieve this by actively marketing to both the "core" gamers and the "Wii" gamers, where "'Wii' gamers" are the new gamers that have already bought into the Wii.

If they market aggressively to both camps, provide a plethora of solid games, as well as a few "casual" titles, and a few "bridge" titles, then I think Nintendo can reap the rewards of triumph over both sides.

In my honest opinion, I think Nintendo was actively keeping itself distanced from the "hard-core" camp. They had two real audiences to draw in with the Wii, it seems to me, the Nintendo loyalists, and the "new gamers." They were in a fairly safe position, I think. If they failed to draw in the "new gamers," then they could easily fall back on the loyalists and still rake in the dough. And let's be honest, Nintendo would have had to screw up REALLY badly to lose the majority of their fans.

As the Wii came to life, and the response from the "new gamers" was heard, I think Nintendo decided to divide up it's resources, targeting their new audience, as well as their core audience. I don't think they really cared about the  the "hard-core" this generation, simply because they didn't need them, and furthermore, in a bid to entice the masses, they needed to appear very accessible, something not easily done when also trying to promote your product as "the console for 'REAL' gamers."

But now, Nintendo has acquired this market, they still have most of their loyalists, and they can move on. I think the next step for Nintendo is to convert the "new gamers" into Nintendo loyalists. These are impressionable gamers, though. They know what is being offered on the other platforms, and I think Nintendo recognizes that it might be enticing to some of them. In other words, a great number of them could probably look at the PS3 and Move or the 360 and Kinect as their next step up in gaming. To counteract that, Nintendo will have to provide similar experiences to what can be found on those competing devices, as well as unique experiences that can only be found on theirs.

In doing this, I think Nintendo will win over a lot of people who aren't already predisposed to hate them (for those their is no cure, methinks). It should also mean a much stronger platform with greater game quality and diversity for Nintendo fans.

TL;DR Version

This generation for Nintendo was targeted specifically to draw in the new gamers, and   with this market sufficiently enticed, Nintendo will work on converting them to faithful Nintendo fanatics/core gamers. They will do this by equalizing the difference between themselves and the competition, and then adding some unique Nintendo flair to it.

I've seen a variation of this theme many times. To be honest we're close enough to the launch of the 3DS to use that to judge potentially how successful they may be applying the same strategy to the NES 6.

this is so true, Nintendo wanted new gamers this gen but they also wanted to keep their core fans

now they'll try to keep their gamers from last gen while attracting more hardcore gamers

sounds like collecting the audience step by step

Problem is the core audience they don't have is much smaller than the sum total of people who don't play videogames at all. Nintendo should appeal to people who didn't buy the Wii OR any other console in order to profit more.

Competing for the core customers means competing with Microsoft and Sony, which are very experienced at retaining those customers and their money.

What Soleron said, smart comment right there.

The original post is just a really long version of what Nintendo has been saying even before the Wii launched.  That they were targeting a new market while at the same time focusing on what made Nintendo great in the past.  And they did that.

And as I predicted two years ago, they are now switching to a focus on 'all' gamers, like they did for NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube.  The only thing stopping them will be support from third parties.  If they jump on early, the next Nintendo system could see the same support and sales of the PS2.  If not, then once again Nintendo will be forced to look inward and support their system with Nintendo focused games.  As they had to do on the N64, GameCube and Wii.

Thirs parties can't have it both ways.  They can't ignore Nintendo, then whine and cry about Nintendo keeping them from doing good on a Nintendo system.  They need to jump on this new system early, or Nintendo will just come out with a new IP like Brain Age or Nintendogs and they'll never have a chance.