Two things:

The 2D Mario game they showed was nothing but a concept title, not something that actually has to be in the works. Hence why it looked exactly like NSMB Wii. They just took some level structures, rearranged them and that's it. Nintendo very well can ignore the sales of 2D Mario and they did just that at this year's E3. They didn't officially announce such a game for the 3DS, instead the entire attention went to Super Mario 3DS. This suggests that there won't be another 2D Mario game coming out within the next twelve months.

The Wii U could end up being a jack of all trades, master of none and as a result serve neither intended audience well. The writing is already on the wall: Hardcore gamers ask why they should buy a Wii U and the people who bought a Wii for motion control games wonder why exactly a new console is needed when its main controller isn't even going to be suited for motion gaming. Whatever Nintendo makes might as well be released for the original Wii.

A positive sign would have been showing off a demo of a confirmed launch window title. The thing is we know that Nintendo has made glaring errors in the past and there's no guarantee that they won't make the same mistakes again. Their market cap has plummeted in the last few years as they've repeatedly missed their forecasts. That is a sure sign that things weren't going according to Nintendo's plan.

The whole 3D thing is incredibly dumb. Nintendo tried to ride the wave of a trend, but it looks like 3D already isn't doing a whole lot for movies anymore. 3D isn't as hot as Nintendo anticipated and now it works against them, because they centered the brand of their new handheld around 3D. This makes it hard to just stop with 3D now, so they are trying their best to keep pushing 3D content. But it's a waste of resources. If the market doesn't want 3D, then you better provide something else. Things the market has shown that it wants and NSMB sold more than 25 million copies since it launched in 2006. Getting a sequel out as fast as possible might not be a bad idea.

After Nintendo has the next generation of handhelds pretty much locked with the 3DS, it got me thinking about how things will play out on the home console side and it looks like Nintendo is going to stay on top for a long time there too.

Ever since Nintendo entered this business with the NES and re-established the video game market, there has been some sort of counter culture. For example, "Genesis does what Nintendon't". The competition defines itself as being "not Nintendo" while Nintendo obviously is "Nintendo" (at least most of the time). While Sega got eventually pushed out of the market by Sony, Microsoft reached parity with Sony due to their much deeper pockets.

As long as both Sony and Microsoft stay in the market, neither one of them will be able to beat Nintendo, because the counter culture remains to be split up between them. This counter culture traditionally consists for the most part of male people aged 13-25. It's this age group that makes it necessary for Sony and Microsoft to continue to make more and more "mature" games with the most imaginative and violent ways to kill things.

Many of the biggest third party hits in today's market are also targeted at the same demographic, so Sony and Microsoft will take care to not lose any of those games to the other company. Which means that their next consoles will again be very similar, because neither one of them would want to run into the risk of ending up with a Wii, a console that most third parties pass on because it requires a different approach to make successful games.

Third parties basically want to do things the same way, they are against change. And since Sony and Microsoft want to have third parties on board, they won't want change either. Neither do most of Sony's and Microsoft's main demographic, other consoles becoming like Nintendo is the last thing they would want to see.

All that leaves the ball in Nintendo's court. If they continue to be "Nintendo" they should be fine. However, if they try to become "not Nintendo", like in the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube eras, they will be facing trouble. During those two generations Nintendo tried to sell to the 13-25 year old demographic and we know they failed. But by doing so they also lost their previous fans, because they ceased to be "Nintendo". No 2D Mario, the mother of all killer applications, for two entire generations. This among other things made Nintendo almost slide into complete irrelevance.

But now with two giants fighting over the counter culture and Nintendo being "Nintendo" again, it's unlikely that either Sony or Microsoft will take the crown in the foreseeable future. Both are stuck in their box and trying to break out of it could mean ending up being left with nothing. A risk that probably neither one of them is going to take as gaming is their gateway to get the center of the living rooms in the world in order to sell more than just video games.

I wish more people held this views.  Gaming sites would be a whole lot more pleasant.

You wish more people acted all high and mighty on forums and wrote off the other side of the aisle as children who can't play good games except when it comes on their console of choice?  I don't.

I think he was refering to the remark about any game any console, the MS/Sony lot was a pointless addition,

Though there is a good deal of truth to his comments about the "hardcore" being the actual kiddy as it happens to be where the most annoying 12-15 year old males are playing (I've spent the last 2 weeks hearing a good 1/4 of the 12/13 year olds banter non-stop of the greatness of call of duty) and the kids are very quick to gang up and attack anyone that doesn't agree with them. effectively in the early teens it is very much the norm for ps3/xbox fan boys to attack kids that like the wii, or even worse older games.  Though they react in the a similar way to Battlefield (it's a call of duty rip off), Ninja Gaiden (it's a god of war rip off) and Gran Turismo (requires to much patience, probably Forza as well).  Regardless my experience is that xbox/ps3 playing children are quite vitrulant about call of duty, god of war, assassin's creed, and to a lesser extent halo.  Spend some time around school children and prepare for some headache inducing call of duty conversations.

Well sure, people everywhere suck.  Sometimes on staff AIM chat I have to listen to PC fans talk down about anyone who dares use a controller as though they were trying to play their video games by rubbing two sticks together and praying to the Sun.  Anyone who thinks of themselves as better than someone else because of something as idiotic as their choice in gaming and that includes Nintendo fans that think that new games are just for teenagers, teenagers that think Wii games are for babies, and PC fans thinking consoles are just totally beneath true gaming are all a bunch of idiots.  And I'd call differentiating and ranking groups of idiots a fool's venture.

But yes, kids on voice chat are indeed annoying, no argument there.

It's only a good year until the Wii U will launch. What they showed so far isn't promising, it even looks like the console is only supporting one of those tablet controllers which makes the whole thing even more baffling. If not all players can use that controller in multiplayer, then why is a that new console needed in the first place? Why can't this controller just be another peripheral for the current Wii?

The answer to both of these questions is third parties. As it is, Wii U doesn't exist because consumers need it. It's made for third parties and this leads to the question why do those who despised the Wii get better treatment than those who liked the Wii? It's mindboggling.