Mr Khan said:
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.
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I do agree with you that staying out of the multi-plat arms race is one option for Nintendo. I don't think it's the only option, though. They could still enter the multi-plat domain on the low end.
The one thing that cannot do and hope to succeed is to hit that unappealing middle-ground where the Wii U lives.
In order to survive without multi-plats, they need to come in at a price point that is significantly cheaper than the competition. This is where the Wii U failed badly. It's far too expensive to NOT have multi-plats. A Nintendo console that focuses on Nintendo exclusives would have, as I see it, a consumer base mostly comprised of: A) the Nintendo faithful, B) budget- or content-sensitive parents, and C) people who want it as a second console. Two of those three categories are going to hold price to be a very important consideration. Nintendo can continue with their gimmicky/innovative hardware designs but they CANNOT go with another expensive gimmicky/innovative design.
They also need variety, which I'm glad they've recognized. It will be interesting to see how the Bayonetta/Devil's Third experiments go. W101 looks to be a failure but the X series will almost certainly be a success.
With the Wii U, they decided to compete with Sony and Microsoft and did a poor job of it. They didn't do the groundwork and they didn't bring a machine that could match the PS4 and XO over the long-run. The whole situation is a mess of poor decisions. It's like someone saying they want to get Valedictorian and then not studying. The fierce competition between Sony and Microsoft has raised the barriers of entrying into that mutli-plat ecosystem way beyond the "build it and they will come" philosophy. Now it takes work, it takes investments of time and money, and Nintendo has not shown that they are willing or able to do that in the west.
They still could, though. If they started RIGHT NOW, they could build their processes for the new generation. They could hire someone from Sony or Microsoft who has experience with western developers. They could review their mistakes and weak areas. They could enter the market with a console built from off-the-shelf parts (seriously, no one cares about that "low power draw" stuff) that is only slightly lower than the PS5 in both specs and price and they could compete quite well. However, Nintendo has not demonstrated any ability to pull that off.
In the end, I mostly agree with you. The safest path for Nintendo would be to go with that "second console" model. Sell to the people who want Nintendo games and/or the cheapest option, then try to sell to the people who already have a Playstation or Xbox. Forget the console war, forget being "number one", and exist within their own ecosystem.
It will be very interesting to see which path they take.
