I meant the philosophy behind the premise of the question itself. Not your personal opinion on the matter. The only reason to match X360 power would be to get more 3rd party support... and so on.

You still wrongly assuming that my philosophy is that Nintendo desperately needs Third Parties to survive, which is actually quite the opposite of the way I think. As I generally think it better to rely of first party to sell your console than rely on the unpredictable and sometime traitorous nature of Third Party support.

There are other advantages to having a more high powered console Wii other than better Third Party support you know. Having a console on par with 360 could mean they could support the Wii console for a lot longer maybe even 5+ years. By then the world economy may be in better state to release expensive consumer goods and maybe even the Wii U could actual be fully portable Tablet console instead of been constrained to the home.

The power of the Wii would have made no difference in the long run. In fact it would have hurt it early on as we're seeing with WiiU as Nintendo is hurting bad and upgrading their capabilities to make HD games, costs associated with the tech and thus final price of the console is simply too much to hit mainstream, and the game(s) that pushed Wii to the forefront of the generation had zero to do with raw power and everything to do with price accessibility and gameplay.

My opinion is split right down on this question so a lot of things you say may have very well come to pass but on the other hand who to say consumer wouldn't pay more for the Wii with the massive buzz surronding motion Control at the time? We simply will never know. 

Let's look at it: power similar to the 360 means the Wii would have supported HD. More power also means it would have outputted more heat, so the design would be affected by being bigger to control and it probably had made more noise. Also more power simply means a higher price. Higher than the X360, because Nintendo didn't sold the console at a loss and the controller was more expensive as the X360-controller. Not as expensive as the PS3 though.

So the results would be:
* lower initial sales because of higher pricepoint
* X360 would have had a much more attractive pricepoint in comparison
* lower sales because of bulkier design and more noise (not so much living room compatible)
* even less 3rd-party-sales (higher effort of game-development for HD)
* first-party game-drought (as we see on WiiU, result of higher effort of HD-development)
* a bit more longevity, because of comparable specs
* a bit more multiplats (but don't trust too much on it, on Gamecube the 3rd-party-support also wasn't great)

After all I think that would lead to:
* 50-70 million sold Wii (PS3 a bit higher, X360 would've probably won the gen)
* lesser sold games, because of smaller userbase and higher effort of game-development for HD that causes longer delays for the games
* a lot less profit for the games, as the effort of HD-development would've increased costs of the games while the sales would have been smaller

After all I think Nintendo would have barely survived the gen.

They did pay more. They paid $350 to $500 on eBay for the first couple years. But it didn't matter.

WiiU proves Nintendo is struggling to get HD games out. That's a fact right now. That would have happened had Wii been HD. Thus, the games that pushed Wii through the roof, would have been late.

MSony proved that HD wii sport/wii fit knockoffs don't matter/sell. So the content that sold the console, gained nothing from HD / power.

The only difference that is arguable is 3rd party support, however, I think there are a few people in this thread that have already shown why that still would never of came. 3rd parties largely just don't want to support Nitnendo and purposefully setup failing projects so they can sell that to their investors.

To them a game industry without Nitnendo is better as they do more with MSony and wouldn't have Nintendo as a software competitor. See that's the difference. On MSony, they can have the limelight as MSony don't make titles that completely obliterate theirs in sales. They just don't do that type of game quality. Naughty Dog is the only thing close, but that's just one studio with one major title every couple years. However, even they don't sale as much.

On Nintendo hardware they have stiff competition from Nintendo directly where nearly all of Nintendo's many titles do very well and are clear competition to everything with the direct exception of shooters. God help them if Metriod ever goes casual.

Again a possible outcome but as I repeated before we simply will never know what the true consequences of IF the Wii being on technical par the 360 in terms of spec's. It's not that clear cut as there are plenty or arguments for and against such a move. It's not like estimating the future of the Wii U, Ps4 &X1 as we will see the result of that in the future. This will be my last post on the matter.

Of course Nintendo would be in a better position.

Now this is under the assumption that the media is the same but it would have made it easier for 3rd parties to share development so that ports would be possible without diverting to many resources to have to downgrade the tech they are using on top of adding motion controls. Sure there would have been an initial lull in game development like the other companies had during the start but truth be told the only games Nintendo really did a lot with in regards to the Wii early on in the first year or so was Super Mario Galaxy. A HD Wii Sports probably wouldn't have been that much more expensive.

The Wii was the right play at the time because they had such an incredible idea with the Wiimote controller and motion gaming ... there was nothing like it at all back then.

As a matter of fact since the machine was to be tailored to non-gamers in a lot of ways, low-tech specs were fine. The price was cheap enough to make sure the experience took off like wildfire.

But you *can't* sell a console using this formula if you don't have a Wiimote level miracle idea. And that's the problem with the Wii U.

The Wii wasn't the problem, but trying to do the same formula again without a new Wiimote type revolutionary controller was the problem. It's like if I'm friends with Brad Pitt, odds are we can roll up to any nightclub/party and I'm getting straight in because I'm with him. But it's like me thinking the next weekend without Brad Pitt I'll get into those same clubs/parties just on my own. That's just stupid to assume, but that's kind of the play Nintendo has made with the Wii U IMO.

No, because Nintendo got a huge lead and price played a role in it.

If Nintendo launched at a similar or higher price as the 360, it would have had a slower start.  Selling at a loss wouldn't make sense, because Nintendo doesn't get much 3rd party support to make up for the loss.

Nintendo may be fading now, but the lead they built was so big that it doesn't seem to be in danger.