I think Nintendo will have the 1st place handheld and home console next generation.  I think the industry will become polarised, with Japanese 3rd party developers mainly supporting Nintendo platforms and the PSP2, while Western 3rd parties focussing mainly on the 720/PC/PS4.

I don't expect the level of Nintendo domination we saw in 2007 and much of 2008, but I also don't expect the utter dismissal of the platform by many 3rd parties that we have see and are continuing to see to varying degrees through this gen.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, for the PSP2 to sell more than the 3DS, a miracle/disaster depending on your view has to occur

Now I know your intentions are good and that you're giving pointers to Nint, but I believe these are flawed

I. Overfishing of the Blue Ocean

Exactly cause all these blue ocean clients will want to go elsewhere, rather than return to Nintendo that understood what they wanted from the get go.

II. Complete, Entire, Utter Underestimation of Online Gaming

and Mario Kart begs to differ, it's one of the most played online games and is also a better seller than MW2... but sure.... In any case, Nintendo may have been under par with the online on wii, but seeing as they even went as far as offering demos now, you can pretty much assume that their next console will have a better online. If you can assume MS and Sony will perfectly target the blue ocean, why couldn't Nintendo perfectly handle online??

III. Lack of Top Notch Western 3rd Party Support

western devs care mostly about graphics.... so yeah lack of support indeed, they made spinoff of HD series that failed and wondered why... they don't even target the correct audience.

Definitely not lack of sales though, the ones that put decent and well targeted efforts on the wii have seen the rewards of it.

IV. Overreliance on an Unreliable Gaming Market

we're on a freken sales site...

OH NOES it sales just as much software as the PS3.... booh bohhh bohhh /cries

V. Overreliance on Milked Out Memes

So... DK is not core cause it'll sell a lot? I don't get you point really cause MW2 sells a lot yet you consider it core... just saying.

And if people buy their 40th mario game, there's definitely a reason behind it.

VI. Conclusion

Why would nintendo study

when their franchises appeal to much more of their audience? these games don't even appeal to 10% of the PS3 audience (No sony game does, this may change with GT but still currently they aer all under 10%)... heck the top 7 selling PS3 games are 3rd party, and besides MSG are not exclusive! At least Halo and gears save the day on the 360, but not by much. Nintendo, however has quite a few 1st party titles way above 15% tie ratio. (even without counting Wii sports... which had about a 50% tie ratio in the countries it wasn't bundled with the wii).

"Time to step your game up Nintendo because this upcoming generation will see the Blue Ocean painted with many shades of red."

conveniently, the new Wii is indeed red!! if that isn't foresight I don't know what it is!!

who cares? Like I´ve said before. I dont care if nintendo is last as long as they can keep making hardware and profit. I was really scared for them at the end of the gamecube. Some people really want to watch them die which I dont understand:(

Yay, let's make predictions of something we don't even know yet...

                   That was because of Nintendo's failing games and hardware released at the time, it doesn't has to do with the lack of Blue ocean gamers. They will be there as long as you give them what they want. If you stop making such games and try to only make what the developers thinks is fun (like sakamoto's mom and the lost levels 2010 edition), they will just flee, but if you make games like NSMB Wii and DK Returns, they won't leave the console.

On the point about 'why can't Nintendo make a game that sells as well on day 1 as COD', I don't really see why they need to.

The best sellers of all time top 20 is dominated by Nintendo titles from this generation and generations past, be they bundled games or otherwise. I don't see why it matters for them to have a massive amount of sales on day one when they're getting a massive amount of sales over a number of years.

In fact it makes better business sense to have your product sell well for years rather than burn extra brightly for one week before fading away.

Furthermore, suggesting that COD (with it's mass market appeal), is somehow more 'core' than DK or NSMB, simply because they have mass market appeal, is just another example of how the 'core/casual' definitions have switched to suit peoples agendas.

The fact is they are all 'core' games with 'mainstream/casual' appeal, thanks to their inherrent appeal of pick up and play gameplay, and there isn't a developer in the world who wouldn't want a game with that perfect market balance in his/her portfolio.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/31494/FilsAime_Holidays_More_Important_To_Nintendo_Than_Rivals.php

Fils-Aime: Holidays More Important To Nintendo Than Rivals

[Fils-Aime said that nearly half of all Nintendo hardware sales for last year came in the last two months of 2009. "For everyone else that number was just over 40 percent," he added]

"nearly half" implies 45-50%
"just over" implies 40-45%

That's not a huge range of variation! In other words, everyone sells roughly the same percentage of their annual sales in those two months!

Regardless, it'll be interesting to see how Nintendo does this year, with two saturated markets and a mobile userbase which is potentially waiting for the 3DS (and depending on who you believe, may well be migrating over to the iDevice world)...

(Comment 2 copied and pasted)

Nintendo does dedicate themselves to certain strictly niche franchises. Fire Emblem at least comes to mind. If they were really aggressive on that point, they'd have Intelligent Systems drop FE entirely, and refocus those resources on the far better-selling Wario Ware