johnlucas, the difference here between you and me, is you presume that the world cares about Nintendo, and when faced with a crash, they will flood to Nintendo, like they have no other choice. I am saying Nintendo MUST stand on its own merits, and win by being the last remaining player. Reality is, people can, and very likely WILL end up voting "none of the above" if there is a crash. Nintendo MUST show that the second screen is a critical feature and the future, or they don't get sales. So far, they have failed to do that. The second screen has NOT done what the Wii remote did and captivated.

And that is the difference here, a KEY difference. Nintendo HAS to pull a curveball out unexpected to change the game, or there isn't going to be much of a game at all.

"WiiU will have the biggest turnaround in videogame history

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h56-lO99fQc

Mario have 14 000 000 facebook fans. What do you think will happen once all of them are informed about this brand new monstrous flagship Mario game by the name of Super Mario 3D World hits stores worldwide?

Nintendo launched with a Mario game.  Does Mario in a cat costume complete with the camera back and released for 4 players on screen at same time make a difference?

Microsoft is now third place and they launched first.

Strength of gamecraft didn't save the Virtual Boy.  No amount of gamecraft is going to get people to buy a system that fundamentally isn't what people want.  And there is little signs that people want the second screen in the living room.  The sales numbers are showing otherwise. Things are worse if even after the price cut and all the shots, the Wii U still loses to the PS4 and possibly the ONE.  That is not a good thing at all.  

Again, it is a matter of what features a system has that matters.  I have yet to see a persuasive argument the second screen is something that would be what people want.

John Lucas, you were right! You said Nintendo abandoned the Wii 'cause it was postmarked as a "casual console" which Nintendo did NOT intend to do!

Here's the proof by an article from 2011 where Iwata said it!
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-01-nintendo-wii-wasnt-intended-as-a-casual-console

All those facebook fans are 3D Mario fans, didn't you know? :p

Never seen somebody talk so much and yet all the while saying, essentially, nothing.

Are you not entertained?

I would be if I knew he was 100% serious (as long as I saw the reaction after the holidays too)

Alas it's all too crazy for me to believe he's serious :(

He's not coming up with any solid reasoning, just a bunch of mumbo jumbo that has nothing to do with anything.

Going up to the launch of the Wii, you had Iwata, Reggie, etc... talking about reaching people who have turned away from gaming and reaching them again.  Maybe the intention wasn't to be casual, but when you do that, you are targeting the casual audience, which made for much success.  I am sure Nintendo didn't want to just be a casual console.  What I saw it as was a casual console and the second console that core gamers owned, to have something different.  Nintendo did think how to try to get the core gamer back, and decided the second screen was a really good idea to do this.  It seemed like that to me at the time also, but it apparently isn't panning out.  The Wii U failed to win back developers of core games, because it is too different from the ONE and PS4, because it isn't X86 based.

I know johnlucas thinks that core gamers would suddenly jump on the Nintendo bandwagon, with its marginal power over the current gen stuff.  What is failed to be calculated here, is core gamers could just go PC.  There are other options.  You have Android and iOS also.  There ARE other options and gamers have choice.  Nintendo has to show they can reach them, and isn't going to win on default.