I make no mistake that I think the Wii U is headed for a lot of trouble, especially this year. I'm not sold on a lot of the Kool-Aid that Nintendo selling this time around. 

So from this POV, where not all things are raindrops and lollipops in the world of Wii, what would I suggest Nintendo do? A few pointers that I think are more out of the box, but I think are ways for Nintendo to carve out their own niche. 

1.) Idiot Proof Your Marketing - Your marketing ... sucks, Nintendo. OK. So what's the quick fix here? Hire a spokesperson, someone who can be the face of your product. I would reccomend either Megan Fox or Kate Upton. Regardless of what you think of them, they are well known, attractive, and can more easily position the Wii U as the "hip" and "Hollywood cool" console. Just show their day, in their trendy LA or New York apartment, watching Netflix on Wii U, then switching to play some NSMBU with a friend, then turning on the Youtube channel and laughing at a video -- there simple. A campaign like this will also get attention on things like Access Hollywood and Entertainment Weekly. 

And indirectly this is smart marketing, but aligning the Wii U as the console of choice for an attractive model/actress, it's kind of a slap in the face of the stereotypes that games are for nerdy male teenagers/college guys or little kids. It's how Apple would market. 

2.) Screw Third Parties -- There I said it. You will never win in a race with Sony and MS for the traditional third parties. So why keep competing in a race you can't win? Change the rules. Start investing more and more directly into small, low-risk indie developers, especially from the West, like the Trine developers. Go find the next Angry Birds or DOOM, it's out there some where with 6 guys in a garage. Go find them. Continue to develop more alliances with Japanese developers like Platinum Studios. Work with Mistwalker again (The Last Story wasn't bad, just released way too late in the Wii lifecycle). Pick up Itagaki's "Devil's Third". 

3.) Create (or buy) a flagship "hardcore" character IP -- Mario paves the way for a lot of the mascot/cartoon/license based content that floods Nintendo consoles, but Nintendo really doesn't have a similar beacon for the older audience. You could always let Retro try their hand at a new IP, or go find one to publish. I suggested for risk-averse Nintendo to approach the folkes at Danjaq/EON productions, who own the James Bond license. Bond is cool, Bond is easy to market, if the rights are available, perhaps Nintendo could get them (or perhaps just rights to Bond FPS games). A Bond game with the same effort put into it as a Mario or Zelda would sell an easy 3-4 million and then other developers could look at that and say "oh, I guess there is an audience for something edgier here after all". 

4.) Get In Bed With Square-Enix -- Screw Kingdom Hearts, a Nintendo-Square-Enix RPG has long been hypothesized ... but it would also make a lot of sense. And sell a ton of software and hardware potentially. Contact Square-Enix, I think they would be very interested, but it should come at a price. Final Fantasy VI and VII Remakes for 3DS and Wii U. The Wii U in Japan needs a killer-app from a third party, and no, sloppy second Monster Hunter ports and an MMO Dragon Quest don't cut it. A Final Fantasy x Nintendo x Dragon Quest game (gulp) would sell millions and millions. Some fanboy fantasies are silly and stupid, this one just makes sense. 

5.) Consider A Controller Re-Design -- No big deal that handhelds get redesigned every year or two ... so why not the Wii U pad? The current version is too bulky and quite frankly a bit ugly with poor battery life and a so-so screen. In a year or two, maybe consider making a sleeker Wii U pad with a larger battery and a better quality screen. If this thing is supposed to be in everyone's living room and even their defacto TV remote ... it needs to be less of an eye sore. 

I like all your ideas, #5 is eh, I actually like the gamepad the only thing that sucks really is the battery life, To me it looks sleek right next to my TV in it's charging cradle thingy.

Good post but I think that Nintendo is already doing some of these things (2, 3) and I disagree with numbers 4 and 5. The uPad is fine apart from the battery but it's replacable and nintendo deliberatly let enough room for a bigger battery so you can pretty much bet that there will be one sold seperately in the very close future.

The reaction on the pad that I've gotten from women tends to be negative. I get a lot "what the hell is that? Why's it so big?" (insert jokes here, but in all seriousness).

The Wiimote was chic and sleek, the Wii U pad kinda comes off like the car Homer designed in the Simpsons.

I think they could make a smaller, sleeker model, and keep the bigger one around too (for order through Nintendo.com) for those whole want it.

I do think the Nintendo TVii stuff has serious potential, but it can't look like that. Women especially are well attuned these days to nice looking electronics thanks to Apple and the tablet/smartphone boom. And they were a key demographic for the first Wii, I don't think this controller "look" is doing Nintendo any favours right now.

Nintendo needs to learn to be a hell of a lot more image concious with the look and marketing of their products. They are way too clueless right now. It's not the 80s or 90s anymore, mistakes here will hurt you big time. 

So... Pretty much the same they did with Wii?

The reason 3rd parties do not like Nintendo, is because they have virtually no control on over Nintendo's platforms, due to Nintendo's strong lineup of IP's, that gives Nintendo the freedom of doing what they want regardless of 3rd parties, which is unlike MS and Sony.

What Nintendo needs, is games that interest people (and marketing them right). NSMBU definately would be one, but the marketing really blew it, as most of the marketing I've seen, have focused on Miiverse features, and I don't think I'm the only one that think the content of Mushoom Kindom and the content of Miiverse do not mix.

Wait, what...? Bond is cool? What is this, 1970's?

Skyfall just made over 1 billion at the box office. 

Unless being a good looking secret agent who sleeps with sexy women, drinks fine alcohol, drives sportscars, and kills bad guys, suddenly has gone out of style ... yes, Bond is cool. Bond is iconic, and he works well with the Nintendo brand ... "cool" enough without getting into areas that I think Nintendo is uncomfortable with -- ie: Grand Theft Auto levels of violence or military shooters with jingoistic politics. 

Bond is just good fun. Women love him, guys want to be him, your parents and even grandparents know him, kids respond to the secret agent stuff, his more violent/sexist nature is kind of given a pass because he's such an established part of pop culture. 

Look there's a million ways to skin this cat, but if I was locked in a room with Nintendo's top brass and had to give them a presentation, this would be my suggestion based on where Nintendo is as a company. I don't think they have the luxury to take years to develop some new IP that *might* be more popular than something like Metroid (which isn't good enough). Bond is an easy fix and the license is available. Might as well make a phone call at least. 

3) Miyamoto already admitted they will never create a hardcore character for older audiences. He said himself that he would never create a character or a game he cannot play while on the couch with his family.

4) Sony kind of destroyed Nintendos relationship with Konami and Square by offering them new tech to expand upon and their relationship got better as the years and Nintendo fell behind getting secondary games.

And this is why, quite frankly, Mr. Miyamoto's "semi-retirement" may not be such a bad idea. 

He's a great developer and should be allowed to make whatever crazy game idea that pops into his head without any question. He's earned that right. 

But holding your entire company hostage to whims of one creator is asinine. It would be like every movie made by Universal Studios having to be cleared by Steve Spielberg or made for Steven Spielberg's family. I mean it's a ridiculous notion. 

Iwata agrees with him and Nintendo as a company insists upon the family image. There are no mature first party titles.Thats probably why I havent purchased Nintendo products in a while. I just feel they haven't grown up for me. They were there for me when I was a child and I will get it for my children when they are young, but they just never grew up with me. I grew out of Mario and it hasnt been my cup of tea since N64. Mario Sunshine was nice but meh.

My opinion is gamers have moved on from nintendo, just look at the sales for zelda sky sword, it sold 3.5 million units, and those sales mostly came from the bargain bin, i talk to gamers about wii u and they laugh but my sister who never plays games, likes the orginial wii, the only problem is everybody owns a wii and they already had the motion tech experience and that's what sold the system not nintendo games other wise gamecube and n64 would have sold amazingly but they did'nt so basicaly nintendo is doomed, they pulled a miracle with the wii but its not gonna happen again.