I think Nintendo will market the "microconsole" as more of a companion for the handheld ... like hey, you have these handheld games, now you can play them on your TV too for a cheap, impulse buy price.

A $300 Nintendo console probably doesn't work period. No one but Nintendo fans will pay that price just to play (primarily) Nintendo games anymore. That time (if it ever existed) is over. 

The model of higher specs requiring more development time coupled with a low fanbase doesn't make economic sense either. If they can cap budget at the Wii U range (still expensive mind you) but spread those games out between two platforms that simply makes more sense for Nintendo. 

I understand from a fan POV Nintendo fans will always want a more powerful PS4-killer type console ... I just don't think that desire is shared by Nintendo at all. They can make a Mario Kart game that looks almost as good as their CGI box art these days ... for Nintendo I think that's good enough. I don't think they have any drive to make games that require resources beyond that even if you gave them the hardware to do so. 

PS4 level visuals won't be possibly in an affordable sub $200 handheld for a long time so that breaks the whole point of the "fusion" system if the handheld simply can't run games or they need to be scaled down so far that you might as well just build the handheld version from scratch. 

The handheld and console have to be comparable in horsepower, my guess is if this is indeed the direction Nintendo goes, the only main difference between playing a game on the handheld vs. the console will be the resolution (just like iPhone/iPad apps). You play Mario Galaxy 3 on your TV, finish one level, then you can go on the bus and continue playing the exact same game from that point later in the day, same game, same visual fidelity more or less on your handheld.

The console business is a sh*tty business anyway ... no one's making any money off it and Nintendo's never going to pry dudebros away from Sony/MS which leaves them with a very limited potential audience since casuals aren't a dead end for them too (can't compete with free/$1 games on a device that everyone carries around with them all the time). 

Also being able to share CPU/GPU cores and using the same memory in the handheld/console variants will save Nintendo a ton of R&D and allow them to buy those components at cheaper prices since they'll be ordering them in higher volumes. It's also an extremely attractive business model from the POV of say the console isn't selling so great, but the handheld is (or vice versa) ... you can just take the CPU/GPU/RAM cores and repurpose them into the better selling hardware variant. 

Whereas right now take the Wii U and 3DS ... completely different components, and the Wii U is selling like a dog ... Nintendo has to eat the short term loss on Wii U inventory. They can't like take the Wii U chip and use it in the 3DS, because they are completely different. 

No one interested in a handheld, especially Nintendo fans, is going to buy a $160 periferal to play it on a TV. That will sell less. And I never said it was a "PS4 killer." In fact, it won't be. It won't need to be. It'll be a cheaper Nintendo console meant to cater to Nintendo gamers. Nintendo will create more IPs catering towards a western audience and have a self sustaining ecosystem. It will strive off Nintendo's fans and be more profitable for it, while gaining new fans. They will invest heavily in creating multiple western first party studios and they will expand business that way. Just like Disney, just like Apple, and just as they said they would.

So a sub-PS4 console for $300 released when the PS4 is probably $300 (perhaps less) is going to appeal to .... who? Outside of the same Nintendo fan that buys every Nintendo console? 

$160-$170 to start could eventually be $99.99 ... if I meant I could play Nintendo games in 1080P on my TV, I'd be willing to bet such a device would probably in the end outsell the Wii U and GCN at least. 

I get the want for a more powerful Nintendo machine and for Nintendo to double down on making all these cool new Western exclusives ... but honestly I think we know deep down, Nintendo is not thinking the same thing. 

Mac and iPhone are completely disparate platforms ... I can't run BioShock Infinite from my Mac on my iPad, not even close. Most programs don't translate back and forth. I think there will be MORE than 2 hardware types, Iwata has raised this possibility twice now, probably a handheld, a tablet, a microconsole, maybe even something else all playing the same games. 

People who haven't gotten a new system yet. And the way the PS4 is selling, it won't get a price drop for a long time. You cut your price when you're loosing sales.

No one else thinks like you. No one's going to pay even $50 to stream their handheld games onto their TV. This isn't a "want." More powerful hardware sells more in this day. If the Wii U launched two years earlier and without the gamepad, it would be doing exponencially better than it is on literally all fronts.

I'm not talking about playing games on the ipone and mac. You can't do that because there isn't a mouse and keyboard on the iphone. I'm talking about why people by an iphone. Music and apps. Iphone apps mostly work on the mac and vice versa. There are exclusive things that give both value, but they have a symiotic relationship like the new consoles will. No tablet or micro console except maybe in China.

Personally I'd love a super-duper 4K capable Nintendo console in 2016. 

However, I think we'll see in a couple of years that what I've said was right (even if it's not what I personally would want as option 1). 

When more details about the Wii started to come out, a lot of people in the Nintendo community reacted with denial/outright anger to anyone who said the Wii/Revolution was going to be only moderately more powerful than a GameCube. It had to be close to a 360/PS3 and lots of people didn't want to accept the truth, but Nintendo went in a different direction, and I think that's going to happen again. 

I think actually in 5-6 years, Nintendo will be a dramatically different company, one that's branched out considerably from just video games. The Wii U failure and the decline of the handheld market is going to have repurcussions for years and years. 

A PS4 powered system in 2016 wouldn't be considered powerful.

It won't be right. Nintendo knows that selling an underpowered console won't work anymore. They're not going to do what made their last arguably two consoles fail. They'll still be fully focused on video games. Sony and Microsolf aren't less video game focused because of their other businesses. Neither will Nintendo.

There's no reason why they can't get a console to cost that much in 2.5 years.