Count me in. How are those not new franchises. The reasoning used againt them is even bizzare. 

Not to mention that Animal Crossing 3DS counters the reasoning used.

I don't know if yall have been asked this question before, but what kind of home/handheld consoles yall would have released if yall had your way with Nintendo(slightly leaning towards the hardware aspects) so they could repeat NDS' and Wii's success?

Animal Crossing was released on the N64. Again before Iwata....

Have you checked how many copies Nintendogs and Brain Age sold on the 3DS? I think that answers why those aren't real franchises that they can keep milking from. And honestly, is that really the kind of innovation we expect from Nintendo?

Threads like these are becoming tiresome. Their will always be a market for gaming first of all. And second of all 3DS is doing great. The Wii U ain't doing to hot, but once the software starts coming it'll catch on.

For their DS successor, I would not have felt the need to include the stereoscopic 3D at all; I feel that feature does far more harm than good. I agree and agreed with Nintendo's call to not have dual analogue sticks, but would have put more focus into practical concerns such as battery life. I'm also ambivalent about the placement of the analogue stick; generally, the games that use/demand it seem to be closer suited to home consoles than handhelds, a lesson which the PSP should have taught Nintendo.

The spotpass feature has a ton of potential as well, although I would have investigated how to make it more useful for regions outside of Japan; the idea of encouraging more local play is a good one, and handhelds generally would be well served by offering more encouragement to keep the system with you as much as possible. The execution leaves much room for improvement, but I find the idea to be quite sound.

I confess, I generally have difficulty thinking of anything but the most banal and obvious ways of improving upon the DS' hardware (software, another story). I mostly have criticisms for the changes that they did make. But even with those mistakes, I believe its fortunes can still turn around if there is more focus on the software (and software prices); I do not find it coincidental that its performance in Japan coincides with the fact that Japan has seen a much larger volume of releases to date. I will reevaluate this position though if 2013 does not have a marked improvement in the 3DS' (hitherto lackluster)Western performance.

I have a difficult time finding many good things to say about the Wii U, though. The Gamepad does lend itself to some neat concepts, and I fully anticipate there will be some good (Nintendo) games coming out based on the Gamepad. But overall, it just seems like a camel at best.

ugh...

Since so many of you keep mentioning how 3DS is doing so well and that I'm obviously wrong.

Sales 2011 vs 2012

So, its launch year had a much higher price, on sale for overall fewer months, far fewer game options and still only saw about a 800,000 sales gain?
Another note:
2011 Nov/Dec @$170= 7.101m sold
2012 Nov/Dec @$170 to $150 (w/bundles) =5.788m

3DS is not doing overall as well as you'd think. Its clearly on a diminishing pattern.

I think it's life will be 5 years, like most sysetems have been lately. White will get cut, due to its uselessness. Price drop to $329.00. Games people want... Some Third party stuff that people will want. Ninitnedo has pleanty of time to get this thing rolling before any new systems hit the ground.

Animal Crossing was released the same year as Pikmin (2001) on the N64, only in Japan, and it was ported to Gamecube the same year after Pikmin was released where it finally got a worldwide release (so they are from the same era).

Unlike the dogs and the Brain series it does have proper characters so it cannot be milked to death by low quality non-Nintendo copies like Horsez or Platypuz.

That being said:

Nintendogs+Cats had its best selling week two weeks ago (and will do over 3M LT).

Brain Age 3DS sales have been lackluster, but I think that it's preposterous to judge them before the game is launched.

New IPs aren't needed to innovate with the gameplay (which is the only type of innovation that matters). This gen we got a new Punch-Out and a new Kid Icarus on 3DS, and they introduced many gameplay changes when compared with their ancestors.

However, if you really want a new IP there's Mario Strikers for example, but I think it will fall in the "etc don't count" zone or will be ruled out by the Mario rule.

I think it's an interesting theory, but it's just conjecture at the moment. Sure, it's possible that having an inadequate OS is the cause for low sales, but we have no way to test it out. The Vita and the Wii U are the only consoles on a decline. But these consoles also have plenty of other problems known to harm sales. If the consoles fix those problems and still have low sales, then you can blame their OS. At the moment though, they do have those other problems, so we don't know which problems are directly harming sales.

With that said, it's probably best to trust history and assume these consoles are being harmed more by problems such as weak libraries, high price, etc. rather than assuming a radical change in the industry. Claiming that consumers demand a certain type of OS is just making untestable speculation. Even though we can't know for sure, I will say it's more likely that other problems are causing harm, rather than OS problems.