Thanks for the laugh.

I think it would have been worse for Nintendo as a corporation obviously, but better for Nintendo fans and Nintendo still would've turned a profit either way.

I think without the casual crowd Nintendo would've invested more resources into a new core game projects (which is what they do best) and had no choice but to push games like Xenoblade and The Last Story moreso.

So no, I don't miss casual gamers at all. Enjoy your iPads and smartphones, don't bother coming back. If they're that fickle they don't deserve the types of games Nintendo actually is good at making -- the 3D Marios, the Metroids, the Zeldas, the Xenoblades, the Fire Emblems ... if they can't appreciate Nintendo for what they really are and Nintendo has to dumb themselves down to this audience to sell anything other than Mario Kart ... screw 'em I say.

Well, lol you're asking me to the go into a parrallel dimension here but in the absence of the stupid (IMO) soccer mom/casual hipster audience, Nintendo would have no choice but to make more actual games to sell their system, which is what they do best.

Even that whole "motion gaming will revolutionize core games! Imagine teh Star Wars game!" was a load of crock that never materialized. Pretty much all the Wii games that used "waggle" were mindless and inaccurate waving of the arm all over the place. The only core games from Nintendo that really utilized the Wiimote to great effect were Metroid Prime 3 and Skyward Sword, and to be honest SS's controls were too finicky and since the Wiimote can't measure depth, it never felt like 1:1 holding a sword.

I'm not sad at all that this crowd is gone, the challenge for Iwata now is to not sit around and sulk about losing this audience to smartphones. They need to aggresively pursue new software philosophies (try new ideas, finance interesting/unique indie projects, seek out system moving third party collabs). My worry though is Nintendo right now is in a state of shell shock like a guy who chased after a party girl, got with her for one night, and now has had his heart broken because party girl just wants to (guess) party, doesn't want a relationship and she's run off with some other guy. Nintendo can't afford to be heartbroken (as it were) over this audience, they have to act swiftly now.

Whoa, no results

Aside from Mario Galaxy games being much better than Mario Sunshine, sure I think you could certainly make an arguement there.

Zelda: Wind Waker, Twilight Princess (is a GCN project), Metroid Prime 1/2, Animal Crossing, F-Zero GX, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II/III, Eternal Darkness, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil Remake, Pikmin 1/2, Wave Race: Blue Storm, 1080 Avalanche, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Luigi's Mansion, Viewtiful Joe, Viewtiful Joe 2, Resident Evil 0, Killer 7, DK: Jungle Beat, Tales of Symphonia, Baten Kaitos, Soul Calibur 2 w/Link, Phantasy Star Online, Mario Kart: Double Dash, Paper Mario: TYD, Star Fox Adventures matches up favorably with the Wii's core games/exclusives. 

N64 was better than the Wii for 1st/2nd party production outright IMO.

The Wii's casual craze didn't yield anything tangiable for real Nintendo fans, games like Super Mario Galaxy were going to be made anyway. In fact I would say the reason Super Mario Galaxy is so great is it's really a modern take on the 90s "Nintendo blockbuster", not infected with any of the design laziness/tailoring to casuals that's seeped into a lot of Nintendo's IP post-Wii (see: the New Super Mario Bros. series which IMO influences the 3D Land/World series, we don't need to make a new F-Zero or Wave Race we can just make mini-games out of them, etc. etc. ).

Given that the NES/SNES had tons of third party support it's not a fair comparision as they wipe the floor with post-Playstation-era Nintendo consoles before the CD-ROM decision pretty much changed Nintendo's fate in the console business.

Nintendo made a few odd creative choices with the GameCube, but the N64? Mario 64, Zelda: OoT, GoldenEye alone are all probably among the top 10-15 Nintendo published games ever.

Nintendo's design philosphies with the Wii began to favor a lot of laziness too ... the "NSMB" concept of using bland art assets and quickly churning out sequels, turning Wave Race into a Wii Sports Resort mini-game, ditto for F-Zero in Nintendo Land, rather than giving us real versions of those games.

Aside from the great Mario Galaxy games, which really are based more on the design philosophies and vision of Nintendo in the 1990s rather than the Wii/DS-era, I don't hold the Wii era with any great reverence just because it sold so much more than the GameCube to overweight soccer moms who thought Wii Fit would give them a beach bod because Ellen told them so.

Yeah the whole "oh look, uncle Ted is trying to play Wii Sports, look at him swing that controller, it's hillarious!" thing was funny ... but once that wore off, the actual core games on the Wii weren't any better than the GameCube really.

No P.N.03.

What the hell is wrong with you

You shouldn't, just because they didn't win their respective eras, doesn't mean they didn't do anything to help industry or weren't quality products. Especially the N64 which basically set the stage for analog controls, force feedback controllers, modern console multiplayer gaming, including genres such as the console FPS, 3rd person adventure games, THE mascot fighting game and the casual party games.

The consoles had their problems and design choices that you'd think Nintendo would want to take back but neither was trash. That is worst then calling Dreamcast trash.

Same reason most people are -- because Mario, Mario Kart, DKC, Star Fox, Zelda, F-Zero, Metroid, Fire Emblem, Punch-Out! Advance Wars, Wave Race, are some of my favorite game franchises period. Y'know like the actual games that built Nintendo's business for over 20+ years. Those ones.

Wii Sports or Wii Fit don't even register in my top 30 favorite Nintendo games, and I'd say that's probably true for a lot of actual Nintendo fans.

I don't give two craps if the Wii would have sold 300 million units, it was a short term bubble that was bound to burst built largely on the backs of an audience that doesn't actually appreciate real games. And all it did was encourage most developers to flood the system with bottom-of-the-barrel party/dance/fitness game crap.

I'll take one Resident Evil 4 or even Turok: Dinosaur Hunter over a bazillion Just Dance or Zumba Fitness Party or whatever.