Nintendo being cast in the role of the victim interests me. This is the company that tried to rule the gaming industry with an iron fist while vacuuming up most of the profits for themselves. That came back to sting them, perhaps is still stinging them, yet now people rush to say that third parties should are the villains here? Bullshit.

They are all companies trying to do the best they can to make money. Nintendo is no better or worse. Sorry, but that's the truth. We already know that they aren't altruistic saints simply fighting the good fight for the sake of humanity.

Now, as far as Nintendo improving because of the rift with third-parties, that's possible, though we have yet to see anything to prove it. Splatoon isn't going to be a big game. Neither is Giant Robot Dry Humping Simulator. Nintendo has yet to show us their next big IP. They've yet to show us an array of Nintendo owned IP that will finally provide diversity to their home consoles. They've yet to show us that they can provide the volume of content that the other consoles will offer.

Quite honestly, we probably wouldn't see any of that until their next console, anyway.

I can see a future where Nintendo doesnt need 3rd parties if they do in fact decide to unify the handheld and home consoles. Nintendo has great software output, the problem is that its spread out across 2 seperate platforms. Just look at the number of 1st/2nd party games on 3DS+Wii U since Nov 2012.

Oh, have some faith! Splatoon can become a big franchise, just like Pikmin became a big francise!

That was cold, yo.  Damn cold.

Their historical and present pettiness aside, third parties are not the villains per se. They are trying to make their money (though not doing an especially good job of it, really). It also bears digging into some of the coded language we all use here. When we say "third party support" we mean "integrated in the multiplat ecosystem" which is why handhelds, where exclusives still rule, are eliminated from the equation. Similarly, the position I and other Nintendo fans advocate is not "kick all third parties to the curb" as i earlier said, but instead "screw trying to pursue parity." Parity in the multiplat realm is a severe uphill battle, as evidenced by the Wii U, and one that is ultimately fruitless, as Sony and Microsoft are already at the top of that hill and Nintendo would have to exert so much effort to even draw level with them that it is, as i said earlier, a fool's errand. The money and energy that would need to be spent to even buy admission into that arena could be better spent on a lateral-thinking kind of strategy. In this realm you could also pursue third parties, either whole companies or specific projects from the big guys, projects that can't work in the current ecosystem but could work in a third-way environment. That was how third party support (that wasn't party-game shovelware) ultimately worked on the Wii: the Wii was a low-risk environment, but still more stable and capable than Mobile at the time, where B-games could, not flourish necessarily, but make a living for themselves.

I said "eShop", but this solution could take multiple forms. Nintendo should better pursue kid-friendly third party games, which still come out from the West and still make appearances on Wii U, and thus is something they could deal with now. More partnership games like Devil's Third and Bayonetta 2 could work out as well, where you pursue games which would get ignored or lose money trying to compete with the Western AAA blockbusters. More games like No More Heroes, in short.

eShop is a possible way forward in that Nintendo could encourage indies and then, essentially, try to promote promising indies into doing boxed retail titles, or retail-grade titles like The Witness.

So this is a post explaining my earlier, more ornery and less thoughtful reply to Rol.

Indies are 3rd party 

Well, people do say that "Necessity is the mother of invention". I can see your point.

Honestly i have mixed feelings about this. I don't think they should go for bestHW or seek parity, but there were "successful" games launched on PS3/X360 and not on Wii U when it was already out: Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, FFXIII (ok, this one i was actually happy to skip), GTA V. Those would've helped Wii U situation.

On the other hand Nintendo could really just keep doing their own things. They always say they don't see SONY/MS as their direct competitors, at least no more than other types of entertainment. So they could leave thirds in the past and try to abandon the eletronic entertainment concept and sell the idea of Nintendo entertainment. This would require a good marketing, something they are not good at and also i can't see many advantages of being a console maker if not to sell thirds. It would be more profitable to just go third and pay royalties for a wider user base.

At any rate they are going to survive this storm and learn from it, one way or another. And if my personal experience so far can be used as an example, Wii U is going to have really great games and be a very good console.

While Nintendo may be posting losses and lowering expectations for now, the pinch they find themselves in has really upped their game. Pressure creates diamonds and they've been forced to up their game. They took a while to get HD under their belts, but now they make arguably the most visually appealing games on the market. The Wii U game pad was criminally under used, only used for inventory or being dicks before which are nice but not groundbreaking, and now we have games like Project Giant Robot, Project Guard, and Mario Party 10 in development that add new features using the game pad to play in ways no other game console could. The lack of third parties is also forcing Nintendo to up its size to develop its own titles and develop new IPs to cover the areas no longer provided by third parties. Nintendo has also become extremely aware of what their audience wants, as evidenced by E3, and probing people, listening to what they want.

The smartest thing Nintendo could do right now is to expand. No one is going to help them with their catalog of games. They can't just abandon the Wii U like everyone here likes to pretend they should do, and you don't magically develop a new system over night, let alone compete in power with the experts at sony or the coffers of microsoft on your first forray into the power systems since the Super NES.

People like to say Nintendo should buy this or that, but there are only a few things Nintendo really should buy. They should buy Capcom, because it offers a disproportionately large catalog of IPs that have name recognition, will sell regardless, complement Nintendo's current library, and could fit the couch co-op ideals of Nintendo. All of that comes with a fully functional studio that can go to work almost immediately on several games. Games that Nintendo sorely needs, and that become console exclusives.

Aside from Capcom, Nintendo should scour their company for the next generation of -the- guys, and naturally grow in size until all of these guys can be doing their own games. Nintendo needs to be at a size where they can pump out at least 12 large scale titles a year within their own studios, and then they won't have to worry about their third party support.

And for those of you saying it's not feasible to do because the Wii U is dead, these assets aren't just for the Wii U. It's an investment for the future. These things won't magically disappear when they move on from the Wii U. They need to be ready to promote their next system as well because they can't rely on third parties again until their systems, current or future, are proven successful.

lol, no, and its why i still not have buy a WiiU.

I don't see how getting less games for your console is good for anyone. Nintendo or the consumers. Nintendo makes great games yes but it just can't compare to the sheer size of 3rd party titles they're missing out on. I don't understand how anyone could keep WiiU as their "main" console, most people would need a PS4 or XBO in addition to the WiiU.