I agree with this and will add some.

Indeed, the gaming industry has been growing. Just add the total sales for each generation and you will see it clearly. The allocation of those new entries demonstrates the gaming style of preference. Clearly there is a grand amount of people out there who want to play "casually". This does not mean Nintendo. It means that when they get home after a tiring day, they need to settle and relax with a game that does not require much on behalf of the player. Some simple arcade, a mindless shooter or whatever fits your bill.

We then come to a point where the industry seeks what those people like to play. Is it shooters? Do shooters sell? They will mass-produce them until they become unprofitable again. Is it motion games, with cameras or other devices? The market will be flooded with those. If the analysts believe that the profit will be worth it, whole console developping strategies will be based on it (see XB1 and Kinect2).

We need to understand that the industry is a soulless and money eating beast (and rightly so). They don't care what "the few" like. They will fork out what people buys most -> what will bring them more profit. I, myself, hate this. I tend to cling to indie games which bring me the nostalgia of the "old school": the 8-bit and 16-bit. But I cannot expect the industry to go back to the late 80s.

To conclude, such was Nintendo's decision regarding Wii. They anticipated that motion sensing is what people are going to go crazy about and invested on it. They wanted the money and they succeeded. Such was their success, that the other two dropped the "mantle of seriousness" and set sail to the same direction. Because in that direction lied the pot of gold, at least at the time.

Nintendo does market and design their hardware/software more for kids than the other game makers too ... it's not like they're all neutral and somehow Nintendo gets painted with a "kiddy" brush for no reason. That's like Prince being upset that people call him effeminiate ... well the voice and wearing purple velvet and a fluffy shirt kinda with women's mascara kinda gives off a certain image. 

Nintendo chooses to have the image they have. The majority of their games are so bright/cheery/colorful they make even Disney cartoons seem gritty by comparision in some cases. 

      Nintendo fans are not going to join the war if Nintendo doesn't do something to change the kiddy and casual image they  have. They have a lot of work to do.

The problem with discussing an article like this is that there is not much of a discussion to be had with the Soundwaves and pokokos of this world. They are right in the bubble where they not only perceive gaming as hardcore vs. casual, but are hostile against the very idea that that entire context is imaginary and was set up by marketers (because the old context of branding Nintendo as "kiddie" didn't work anymore with all those adults across the world playing DS and Wii). Admitting that it is bullshit would mean that they've been played by marketing for years. So it's not easy to get out of that self-feeding cycle, also because if they stay in, they get to keep their aura of superiority.

The reality of the situation is that Nintendo became an enemy of the video game industry, because they didn't conform to the rules. They didn't perpetuate the superiority of the young male gamer; it's also conveniently ignored that it wasn't possible for Nintendo to do that in the first place, because the industry's marketing kept harping on Nintendo hardware by declaring it to be for inferior gamers (SNES, N64, GC, Wii, Wii U). Somebody has to be the scapegoat for this kind of marketing to work.

So even if Nintendo conformed to industry standards, their sales would go down; because the industry's target demographic gets told that they should buy PlayStations and Xboxes, and the people who would play Nintendo games would get locked out by high hardware prices and a lame controller. So Nintendo is forced to divert from the industry norm in order to find success; then in turn they get blamed for doing it by the very same people who forced Nintendo to go in a different direction in the first place.

It's a perfect setup for the industry to keep pushing their narrative that Nintendo doesn't get gaming. Just like the great console war between Sony and Microsoft is a great tool. The marketing and PR works in a direction where the declared hardcore gamers are too busy fighting over which version of a multiplatform game has more grass, seemingly oblivious to having their rights removed one step at a time and getting milked with more and more special editions and DLC. And when someone stops for a moment to ask "Wait, wait, wait... what has gaming become? It didn't used to be this way.", then the answer is that all those anti-gamer moves were necessary for the industry to survive and keep the great games coming, accompanied by the notion that it could be worse: The alternative is Nintendo who suck, suck, and suck some more.

Just to make things clear. Even from the get-go, Nintendo positioned the Wii as being for EVERYONE. They showed Wii Sports along with Zelda TP and Metroid Prime, as well as a trailer for Mario Galaxy during the Wii reveal. Nintendo's aim was disruptive innovation, IE serve the low-end market, and then with technology advances of their disruptive innovation, they would be able to get to the high tier, pushing their competitors higher and higher up until they are forced out of the market. Also, during their 2008 peak, the Wii alone sold twice the software of the PS3 or 360.

I'm not trying to defend the Wii U. It didn't continue the disruptive trend in the way it was supposed to. But what you cannot say about it was that it was only marketed for "teh cazualz". Again. Look at the games Nintendo are publishing for it. There is a great deal of variety.

The thing is, that when the Wii hit the world. The game industry had been busy for decades optimizing the userbase of young males, and thus alienating all other markets. So they reacted very hostile to the Wii, because the Wii also catered to markets that went against their user base optimization. Sure, they tried to change later by making the spin off "for casualz" kinect and move, but look how that turned out. They never tried to expand gaming, they just released a pink "for girls" chocolate bar.

I agree. It's sad to see how people can hold on to such stupid sterotypes about gaming, and how viciously they defend them.

People seem to forget so easily how people spoke about gaming before the Wii. Noone said casual back then. Ever.