@bold: I would argue that's an oxymoron.

As for your thesis, I just don't buy it. I understood your trepidation when the Wii U launched without much fanfare. But how can you fault Nintendo for apologizing to its customers, and promising all the games they want? People want Mario, Zelda, and Mario Kart. People want new IPs. People want to see their favorite characters reborn in a brand new game. We got all of that in the span of 35 minutes.

As for the tablet technology not being very impressive in 2013...OK, that's a good point. But the way Nintendo has deployed that technology to work with Wii U software? THAT is new and exciting.

The Wii was a revolution, no doubt. But the Wii U will be the better system when the dust settles.

Your right I just get wound up far too easily. I love what Nintendo did yesterday. I had faith the whole time and my patience was rewarded. Oh it was rewarded alright. I didn't see wind waker coming at all. Personally I like twilight princess best but ww is definitely up there.

I know I have seen mostly praise though even coming from some notable users who don't like them so that speaks for what they actually did. And I think its a given that if I had any envy at all towards sony fans I would have joined them for ps3 at christmas and not broke my bank on this instead. Unless you mean calling them out in which case I am no better then the creator.

The reason I don't praise announcements to high heaven is because I would probably get labeled as 'bias' but I would like their announcements because I like nintendo.

This thread didn't impress me. Pull off something better.

I don't get the complaints about the Wii U having no systems sellers in its 1st few months. We rarely ever see such a thing... the 360s system seller arrived in the form of Gears a year after launch, the ps3's in the form of MEtal Gear in 2008 or arguably COD/Assassins Creed in late 2007, even though they're not exclusive, they still gave you incentive to pick up a next gen system.

My problem with the Wii U is that nintendo never gave us reason to be excited about its future. If possible these games should have been shown prior to the systems launch. But regardless almost every system launch gets the same reception; 360.... no games, ps3... no games.... 3DS.... no games, PSvita.... no games. Even the wii which had the best launch of last gen (IMO) was said to have too many ports and not enough original games in its 1st 6 months.

The difference between Nintendo machines and Sony/MS machines is Sony/MS machines tend to be very well supported by third parties and the audience there also gravitates to genres that tend to be viewed as "throwaways" on the Nintendo audience (like sports games, which are a big deal on the Playstation or XBox). For a lot of PS or XBox fans a new Madden or FIFA or NHL is every bit as important to them as a new Zelda or Mario is to the Nintendo fan.

The 360 still had Call of Duty 2 IIRC at launch which really probably laid the ground work for the franchise to explode later on because it got a lot of attention as being "the" 360 game to buy early on. 

I believe the 360 also had Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion by March of its first year. Obviously Skyrim would be huge for the 360 later. 

The 360 had a pretty good launch window to be honest, Call of Duty 2, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Ridge Racer 6, Perfect Dark, Kameo within the first 4 months. Dead Rising was also before Gears of War. 

Well i think the event was OK. Not overwhelming, but ok.
- 3D mario: yay. i really don't care anymore about 2D marios because i've played them on the SNES and the newer ones aren't nearly good as back then. But since i played mario on the n64 i love them in 3D.
- Yoshi's Island: meh. i don't like it in kirby's style. that fits to kirby but i don't like it with yoshi. i wanted it to be like the yoshi game on the SNES with its handdrawn graphics.
- Zelda remake: well, this should be cool
- Zelda new game: wtf do they think to recreate the idea of Zelda? Screw this. i want my Zelda game just like before. i want it linear, i want it offline, i don't want a dynamic world in zelda.

All in all i am frightened that all these games will take far too long to be released to get me hyped once they are out. The WiiU needs more games for the first half of the year, and i don't see them coming. The future looks good when it comes to games but hell. i want the games now. i will end up buying a PS4. and then it will take a long long time before the WiiU becomes interesting to me again, maybe with a pricecut.

I don't get it.

Isn't core gamer pretty much a third party business (expect HALO)?

Nintendo's Halo is Zelda and they did go heavy on it. The rest need to come from third parties and they will start announcing  once the system is stable, selling or already having a core audience. This may be the plan.

Plus, Bayonetta 2 and Xenoblade feels more core than casual to me. What do you want more?

DId Call of Duty effect happened overnight? NO! They need people owning PS3 and XB360 before selling load of software hence the latest 3 been more popular than the first ones.

I am I right or I am missing something?

However; I agree with overall: Nintendo is less core than sony and ms. Mario is not helping to change the image but on the other side is keeping them floating.

My question to you is what will you do If you were Nintendo?

Would you invest your money in a core-gamer hunting strategy or get Mario/Yoshi and Party games out there?

I'm nintendo big fan, and I love all of my sony console. But nintendo always come first.
Here is the thing, when sony show off their 1st party games such as Uncharted, GoW, last of us, etc2 I was totally happy and that's the reason why I love my ps3! When some 3rd party dev announced they games like a moh series, ac series, dead space, etc2. That's just fantastic! Because I have more option.
Here is the problem, I don't know about fanboys and I think Nintendo fanboy they need more excited for a game outside from Nintendo.

I also disagree with Nintendo's strategy the past few years, where I indeed feel they squandered away their advantage in the market. However, I am not sure Wii U has abandoned the mass market yet. Maybe they realize that $350 is too expensive for that Wii Sports-market anyway, so their focus will shift more back to them once they are able to drop the Wii U price.

At that time, the Wii U will probably be the cheap alternative to Xbox 3 and PS4, and a good option for the budget gamer. Today it isn't.

For every good 360 game that came out launch you can name 1 counterpart for wii u. Honestly wii u overall seems to have a better year then 360 and ps3 did when they came out.

The games you highlighted I really can't see myself caring for. Though it would be good for the people that do want them on there, if I really wanted to play buggy bethesda games I would buy them for my laptop. Contrary to their reputation they seem like a bad developer to me. But I speak for myself there.

It looks more like nintendo is pushing their own content into third party games or collaborating with them to create their own unique games. I believe that is the right move here because it can give nintendo fans serious incentives above mere timed dlc. They don't really seem heavily focused on the games you mentioned. They seem to want japan. Its really the best move for nintendo because not only do they have a chance at cracking that market japanese games (including more mature ones like resident evil) have sold rather well on nintendo.

For people like me wii u will be brilliant but the developers you mention are more focused on cinema style games.