Droughts have been hapenning consistently since 1996, nothing new to Nintendo fans.

whoo there, just because YOU dont like the topic doesnt mean the mods arent doing their jobs. Wow.

OT i actually think the OP is dead wrong. Ninty should and will ride this thing out no matter how bad it gets. IMHO thats what really screwed Sega up, the constant stop and go support of their systems (32x, Saturn, DC, CD to a lesser extent) killed consumer confidence. no one wants to buy a product from a company that is known to stop support.

naw man. everything you said would be expensive and NOT launch at a decent price. Better than PS4 with a sideshow gimmick? Thats pretty much x1 without the power. And they would HAVE to sell it for 500 plus to make a profit.

Too early to tell for anyone outside of wishful thinking or wanting the company to drop out because of some dumb personal reason. Just think how times would be different if the PS3 or 3DS were scrapped based on original sales.

oh, it could be worse. The WiiU has already sold 5 times more units than the Virtual Boy. 5 time more.

honestly if they dropped it and released a new console too soon what do you think that system would be like? and what would happen to that system as soon as the other new consoles came out? then it would be even farther behind the curve than the WiiU is now.

this^^^ is what I have been thinking for a long time. However they MIGHT, might be better off doing that with their next system.

It's not the console per se. Sure its lack of power is holding it back a bit, but that is not the be all and end all of why it's failing. Nintendo is still relying on decades old franchises to try to sell its system. What Nintendo failed to learn is that part of the success of Wii was new first party IP. The fact that new IP was mostly all party/fitness/casual fare that would not turn people into gamers is why Wii was a 3/4 of the generation phenomenon. Most of Nintendo's first party offerings to the long term gamer was more or less more of the same: Zelda, Mario et al, Metroid, Donkey Kong.

HDifying those ancient franchises just isn't cutting it with the gamers. Nintendo is fixated on its mascot franchises and hasn't moved on to give the maturing game audience what it wants. Bring new and compelling first party franchises suited to the 30+ gamer on stream and the Nintendo console will succeed. It may not be too late to do that with Wii U. The question is does Nintendo really know what it needs to do on the game side of things? If it just releases a new console in 2015/16 without changing what it does with the games then it may sell better because of the specs, but it won't set the world on fire. Indeed PS4/Xb one will be mid cycle by 2016, which means a sizeable, growing and active install base, which means once again 3rd parties will be shy of Nintendo because they are starting from scratch. Nintendo can only really launch another console when PS4 and Xb one get to the late gen stage with declining HW sales and software sales starting to fall away too. That's when Nintendo could swoop in with new hardware and capture some 3rd party enthusiasm, with some awesome 1st party stuff that 3rd parties want to emulate (which they can't do with Mario and co, becuase gamers won't buy Mario knock offs.

Trouble it late cycle launch means, once again, Nintendo having and underpowered console if/when PS5 and Xbox One 2 come along.

If Nintendo stayed with handheld, but went 3rd party on home consoles and PC they could be very successful. But it's good to have a Nintendo home console around, even though I'm not likely to ever buy one.

i would argue they should have done that from the jump. I thought thats where they were going with it anyway, i expected SOME kind of portability if they were going the tablet route.