Failure in Japan also has little direct influence in the rest of the world.

I don't see Monster Hunter making 3DS more 'adult' to the Japanese audience.  It's another game on an already popular system.  I could be wrong but I think the kiddie image is more a western thing.   MH is also pretty irrelevant to the western market as well.  So is Dragon's Quest another huge game in Japan.  It doesn't matter that these are a big deal in Japan, what matters - as far as worldwide success - is what's huge in the rest of the world.   And that would be the CoD's, ACs and GTAs type games which don't exist on 3DS (or Vita for that matter).  And MH4 isn't going to do a thing to change that.

This is assuming their only competition in the casual space is dedicated handhelds.  So far, their casual software has not been performing as well as on the DS in Japan.  Things like Brain Training, NSMB, Layton, and Nintendogs are far behind the DS versions.  Tomodachi started off stronger, but isn't having the legs of the DS one, same for Mario Kart.  Now either these customers have dropped out of the market completely (which would be bad on its own), or they are getting their fix from elsewhere.  Smartphones being the likely culprit.

Nothing. They are a bunch of bipolar haters flooding the internet. Nintendo focused in "casuals" and "kids" and make two of the best selling devices ever with the major buzz in the industry. Profited like no other company in the vg industry.

I liked more their "casual" image than the "hardcore/teenage" one.

You're not old enough to remember when Final Fantasy or Megaman was considered a game for teenagers.

We weren't haters, just recognized a good game when we saw it.

Japanese games were far more valued by the western markets at that time.  JRPGs in particular are now poorly received outside Japan. While Capcom has done a good job of catering to western tastes with RE, Dead Rising and the ever popular Street Fighter,  I don't find Japanese developers are as big as factor in the industry as they used to be back in the NES, SNES etc days as a whole.

That's pretty much what I said. I also said that the industry is unstable right now in the west as a result of the kinds of content they are creating to make the most money, and that steering away from what made games so exciting back in the day is not sustainable.

I believe that when it breaks down, Nintendo will be in a position in Japan to pick up where the industry left off in the west (much like they did with the NES).

I dont know. Nintendo lost me in 2002. I havent purchased a Nintendo product since. Wind Waker nailed the coffin for me.

What follows is the original promise from Nintendo for Zelda on GC. It later turned to Wind Waker. UUUGGGGHHHH. What is so hard about providing content for those who like mature visuals?

Teen mentality is strong in the above poster ^^. Have fun chasing them turning Zelda into Ninja Gaiden 2 and Metroid into Gears of War.

And what makes you think that what western developers are doing is non-sustainable?   As long as titles like CoD and GTA sell in the tens of millions and others in the 5-10 of millions they'll keep on going with it.   Many mid-size developers may get pushed out of console gaming but they'll just move to mobile, which has been happening for a while now, although often the developers of those former companies creating new mobile dev studios under new names.

This makes the mobile games industry far more likely to topple the traditional console market than anything Nintendo is doing in Japan.

I agree. Nintendo will start making more mature games again, but I doubt they will stop with the likes of Animal Crossing and Wii sports as long as they sell well enough. But with those titles they made a new audience, and lost an old. Now, it's time to reverse it. And seeing as nintendo already have lost a whole lot of the new ones, it's about time that they start.