It's different to them having their own games on the 3DS and Wii U. There are a lot of PS4/Xbone gamers that wouldn't buy a Wii U but may buy a 3DS. But having Nintendo games on PS4/Xbone could ruin the incentive.

It's possible it could also have no effect, but I just don't think it's as cut and dry as that.

^ Those consoles will likely fail before Nintendo's even in that position^

I only read the OP.

I honestly have no idea what Nintendo can do. Generalizing, but as a Nintendo fan, I don't buy their consoles for their graphics, third party support, online, or anything that a lot of people get excited about. I just like the feel of Nintendo's games. If the Wii U were a black and white pedometer, I'd have bought it. If it's a Batcave supercomputer, I'd buy it. Why? #ItsNintendo. I don't know if they can appeal to the "Dudebro" gamer as long as Sony and Microsoft are out there. The HD Twins just have the sexier image. Maybe another creative breakthrough like the Wii but that's it.

They just have to call it the Wii U 2. Brand recognition will do the rest.

They went with Nintendo 64 after the NES and SNES ^

NIntendo's not concerned about brand recognition

Make a innovative console as powerfull as ps5 and the next xbox

Coincidently I picked up a Wii U today. I wasn't really interested in the console but my Best Buy had the Skylanders / Wii U bundle for $199 and I have $75 in Best Buy Reward Zone Certificates and a $75 gift card making the purchase a total of $60 after tax... Too cheap not to!

If they hope to win more people to their court more they have to:

1) Add an achievement/trophy system that is required for every game. To stay true to their beliefs they should make it optional for each gamertag to opt in or out of the achievement/trophy winning and tracking.

2) They have to be able to playback blu-ray movies. I don't want to have a separate device for Blu-ray and games.

3) The hardware must be on the mid to high end rather than on the low end side.

4) They have change their relationship with third parties and make it more attractive to develop on the Wii.

5) They have to brand the console as having more "mature" content.

6) Improve all of their online features. It is slow, cumbersome, and annoying as compared to the other two major consoles.

Well, they were gonna call it the Ultra 64 before deciding to go with the Nintendo name....

Just saying.  I'm nit picking, though.  I know what you mean.  That's why they dumped the mega popular Gameboy name (my job's rules STILL say "No Gameboys allowed") for DS name.

As many people said, "success" is subjective, maybe you consider a product to be successful because of it's sales, but I believe the level of success should me measured by the profits said product generates, since a product can sell a lot but still make the company lose money on each unit. On consoles, as we all know, they make up for it via games sales and currently also by paying online services, but in the unfortunate case that in the end it doesn't make any profit, would it still be called a success despite it's high sales? As far as I'm aware the Xbox division has lost a lot of money and it's currently making some profit, but it didn't break even yet, so I don't believe that Xbox should be called a success until it does.

On the other hand, answering to the title question, my guess is that Nintendo ought to buy a few strong dev teams so they can produce more major games and at least partially compensate the lack of third-party support. Not only Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kirby and DK, of course. They have a lot of inactive franchises* that could be brought back to life. Nintendo makes good games, but good games take a lot of time and resources to produce, so new developers teams will allow them to produce more. Imagine if they bought Platinum Games, that would be great IMO... Specially because I want MadWorld 2.

*Imagine Star Fox U as a serious Third Person Shooter that works something like a mix between Max Payne 3 and Mass Effect 2. Now THAT would be a powerful system seller.

The first thing that needs to happen is that Nintendo fans need to learn that successful doesn't mean beating Sony or Microsoft in sheer numbers. Like the PSP, it can be successful while being primarily niche.

As for Nintendo, they need to take a cold, hard look at their business model for hardware. You cannot be underpowered and expensive, not with the competition in today's market. They need to take that to heart--actually, you'd think they would have learned with the reception the 3DS received initially. Also, if they're going to gamble on innovations/gimmicks, then they're going to have more strike-outs than home-runs, especially if the gambles are expensive. That's just the way it is. If they want to keep throwing the dice on hardware, fans should expect to see more Wii U's than Wii's.

They need to scrap this "we do don't follow what others do" philosophy. That's childish. If someone else comes up with something that's really better, which people really like, then you follow the hell out of it. That in no way stops you from coming up with your own innovations and ideas, it just stops you from falling behind. An accounts system, for example, should have been in works from the moment they saw how popular it was with Xbox and Playstation. It's not about pride, it's about giving customers the best experiences.

If they're set on remaining under-powered, which is fine, then they need to diversify their own offerings. This isn't the 1980s, most people play many different genres. What they're doing now with commissioning titles from outside studios is a start but they're going to have to really support their efforts. Acquiring or creating more studios which focus on other genres would not be a bad idea. They need a signature western developer, one that works on original, western flavored IPs. Can you see a Nintendo system with their own Naughty Dog?

Speaking of Sony, they're known for the technical assistance they provide to third-party developers with specialist groups like X Dev, Naughty Dog's tech-specialist ICE Team, and Sony Santa Monica. Nintendo needs something like that.

Honestly, my feeling with Nintendo is that they just don't want to spend much money on anything. That's great short-term but it might bite them in the ass eventually--if it hasn't already.