I agree with your points, but then I don't share your opinion on what Nintendo should do or even if it's capable to do so.

I think we have derailed this thread too much, don't you think?

Iwata cos he didn't beat Bill.

Or the thread gets closed, something that can happen anytime.

And to continue debating, while Nintendo is very capable of producing and launching lots of games, mostly good ones, I don't think they are capable of sustaining their own consoles by themselves if only because they don't produce games in every genre.

Yes, they have rpgs (action, japanes and turn based ones), platformers, racing games, sport games, etc. but as gamers we also need "realistic" racing games (yes, GT or Forza, but also F1, Dirt, etc.), western rpgs and First and Third person shooters, and others that Nintendo doesn't care about or is not capable of making (and this explains in part why some people think of them as makers of games for kids, wrongly).

I agree 100%... but: multiconsole ownership will always happen, and it is a good thing, but there are two kinds of people that do this, the ones that buy all consoles at launch and the one who buy one and then waits for the others to fall in price until they think the price is reasonable or the console has enough exclusives that appeal to him/her to warrant the purchase of said console.

At the begginig of each gen or the launch of a new console, this second group has to decide which console to buy. As of today their decision would be something like "Go with Sony with their exclusives and 3rd party support", "Go with Microsoft with their exclusives and 3rd party support" or "Go with Nintendo with its exclusives and... nothing else". That's why Nintendo needs true third party support, to convince those people that they have to get the Nintendo console first, instead of being the one to buy later on when the number of consoles doesn't mean as much to the developers as their target players already have the other consoles (and thus don't even bother with a port for Nintendo's console).

That's why (and I'm going back to the begging of this discussion) I voted for Iwata, because he has realized this and is trying to change it.

I have to disagree here, having your console bought at the beginning is important, because what gives more money are the games, and the sooner people buy your games, the better.

And it's not about making your console the winner but to make it more desirable from the beginning to everyone. If you do this, you will not only sell more consoles, but you will also sell more games from your studios and also from third parties, that in turn will see your platform as viable option and will put more effort and launch more games, something that will atract more users that will also buy your games.

And let's not forget that for every 3rd party game sold, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo earns "free" money, so it's in their best interest to have good third party  support.

Iwata

Not that you can please everyone but that you don't have to limit yourself to please your current userbase. After all, if a CEO doesn't try to expand their business (while keeping it safe financially), he is not doing his job properly.