It's a historical thing.

In the 80's, videogames were something "made for kids".Then the 90's came with new genres of games aiming for a more mature/restricted public(like resident evil,mortal kombat,Silent Hill,etc...).This games changed the video game target demographic(which was not "only for kids" anymore).

The problem is,nintendo always had a problem with that!(remember the bloodless version of mortal kombat for SNES?) They always had this "family friendly/but the kids?!" rules.

Then Sony came with playstation 1 together with third parties like Capcom,Konami,Square enix,Actvision,EA and released games that aimed for this new demographic(teenager and young adults) like Resident evil and Silent hill and for the old demographic(kids) like Crash and Spyro.

Althought Nintendo had RARE at the time making games like Golden eye and Perfect Dark for N64,it wasn't enough to compete with the third party AAA games that PSone had.

And the gamecube era was even worse,they teased a Zelda with mature design and delivered a cartoonish game.(one of the best games of that generation,though).Plus the launch box design of that machine made the "nintendo is for kids" joke spreads.

And then we had Wii,a console that was not made for the gamming comunity(the 80's 90's kids that were on the age of 17~27 back on wii launch) but aiming the casuals(the sisters,grandmas,fat moms) and KIDS.

Now we have the WiiU,a console full of cartoonish platformers,without third party suppoirt to bring some mature games for the library,and TV ad that still focus on tots and grandmas.


I don't like stereotypes but nintendo is guilty for this.If they make next zelda with cartoonish graphics the joke will never stop!

Yeah, sure I mean I play Nintendo games as well.  Zelda, Mario, Pikmin, even party games, etc. appeal to adults too.

That doesn't change that a higher % of those gaming on Nintendo are kids, especially Nintendo handhelds.

Plus you can see it in Nintendo's demographics.  They extended their reach broadly with Wii.  Then they tried to make Wii U appeal to a more mature audience but it didn't work, so they went back to focusing on kids.

Reggie Fils-Aime, December 2013:

"The marketing has tremendously ramped up," Fils-Aime said. "And really where it comes down to is being crystal clear in who's your target. For us, this holiday with the Wii U, the target is parents and their kids. So if you're watching primetime family entertainment, you're seeing our marketing. If you're a parent watching morning or daytime media, you're seeing our content."

“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

― C.S. Lewis

To be fair just not that many people have Wii U, kids or adults. I don't know many parents rushing out to get the $300 machine for their kids (except me!).

My kid was very excited playing SM3DW, but he's pretty much stopped playing Wii U, even though we got some more games.

 kid: "Can I play games?"
 me: "Are you gonna play Wii U?"
 kid: "No, can I play on your Nexus 7 or iPad?"

Mario Kart 8 may be the last hope!

Probably the Xbox 360 is a better kid console now. While it's also a very hardcore console, it's $179.00, has lots of cheap games for kids, and kids love Kinect.

Nintendo is childish, all of their main franchises are cartoonish and child friendly. All of their ads feature those characters.
I believe N has two target markets - little kids and grown up nostalgics that have started playing N games 15-20 years ago and are for some inexplicable reason still attached to those franchises of their youth.
That' s why there are 70 billion Mario and Luigi sequels, 5 trillion Donkey Kongs and what, some 800 Pokemon "gotta have them all" figurines for that childish OCD suffering grownups.
I can see no other reason for a person to play Donkey Kong in his 30s other than that desperate grip on his fleezing childhood.

And that is the reason why every Nintendo console sells worse than the previous, because their install base grows up. Most quit games altogether, while others just move on to adult oriented games on XBox and PS.
Wii is the exception to the trend, because it managed to reel in a lot of kiddie/granny population through their gimmicks.

Unfortunatelly, even if N wanted to change public's perception, it's too late. It will forever be a platform for my daughters and nieces to play Barbie and Peppa Pig games.

Pretty soon, in the next 3-5 years, even those most hardcore nostalgics will finally grow up and move onto other hobbies, or even real life, and Nintendo will cease to exist as a gaming platform for anyone over 12.

I wonder why kids would want to take a gamecube to the school, I mean I don't think teachers would have allowed them to play video games in the school...

Well Im almost certain the Game Boy found success being the must own item at a lunchtime in school.

As for a home console, we were occasionally allowed to play them. Although it really had the handle for carrying to a mates house... because a bag is so hard to carry

I can't believe Nintendo really designed a console thinking of portability XD just imagine how it would've been carrying an Xbox XD

Dont have to imagine, used to carry my mates Xbox back and forth all the time. Dont really know why though, we only ever really played games that we could buy on PS2 anyway and we both owned and prefered the PS2 =P

Me too