Other than GTA which western AAA multiplats did Gamecube miss out on? Ya I know GTA wad the biggest one during the time but it had Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, Rainbow 6, Prince of Persia, Madden, FIFA, Medal of Honor, Need for Speed, Burnout, all the licensed superhero games, Tony Hawk, Call of Duty, Timesplitters, Turok and many more. PS2 being around Isnt a real argument, If having AAA westetn titles was such a big deal for Nintendo consoles then Gamecube should have sold much more.

Well for one I dont believe Nintendo should ever release a $300 comsole again, $199 should be what they aim for next-gen. Also do u really believe if mainline Pokemon games were on consoles they wouldnt move hardware and still be multimillion sellers?

But we seem to be getting kind of off track from my original point, I dont think Nintendo should cater to the AAA western 3rd party developers because for various reasons those types of games typically dont sell well on Nintendo platforms and have never been a significant contributer to the success of any Nintendo platform.

In my opinion the best way for Nintendo to be successful is to release mass market priced hardware (preferably $199) sold at a profit from the get go, and to have a consistant schedule of high quality software that cant be found on competitors machines. Nintendo's biggest problem this generation has been releasing too high priced hardware, $250-3DS & $300-350 Wii U, with one selling at a loss from the start and the other having a huge price cut which resulted in selling at a loss and on top of that both have had software droughts at certain points. That is what has caused Nintendo's financial situation to be subpar in the last 3 years.

As always with business decisions the engineers are told what to do by marketing and financial departments. They read the conclusion part of the executive summary of the report that has taken the engineers years to produce. Then they proceed dicussing costs and profit margins: "We want it this way, make it happen!"

Which for the most part ran worse than the PS2 versions due to the different architechture or came out several months later (this really hurt the cube in the early days as games like Hitman were 6 months later with inferior releases) also games like Max Payne never hit GameCube being cancelled in a rather high profile way stating the cube wasn't power enough. The Cube also didn't play DVDs and was perceived as "kiddie". I don't really see how PS2 being around isn't an argument, given it firmly handed Sega, Nintendo and Microsofts asses to them with all the trimmings.

PS2 was a beast that most people wanted. While I agree that AAA multiplats don't make or break a console, not having them weakens your hand. The PS2 just went so spectacularly well for Sony, that both Nintendo and MS were late to market and just didn't have anything that could compete. Not having GTA3 really hurt them both too. The PS2 "exclusives" (Metal Gear Solid being another big one back in the early 2000s) even if many were 3rd party, were just too much for either MS or Nintendo to compete with. Silent Hill was another rather high profile series at the time that GameCube didn't get at all, and Xbox had to wait for. PS2 was just the only place you could play almost everything.

Although your ideas sound great for consumers, it wouldn't be a very smart business decision to do what you are suggesting.

What I meant by PS2 being around isnt a argument is that if Gamecube was a highly desired console it would have done better. The fact that it was percieved as "kiddy" has nothing to do with PS2, the fact that GC released late to the party has nothing to do with PS2, the fact that Nintendo chose 1.5gb mini DVD instead of 4.7gb full DVD has nothing to do with PS2, the fact that Nintendo chose spinoff-esque sequels to many of there core franchises has nothing to do with PS2, the fact the Nintendo basically gave up the FPS crowd to Xbox has nothing to do with PS2.

Of course PS2 played a role in GC not selling very well but Nintendo's own decisions play a much bigger role in whether or not there platforms are successful. If Nintendo released Gamecube one year earlier with full size DVD, a less toy looking design, straight forward sequels to Mario 64, Star Fox, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Zelda and had Perfect Dark as a launch title to bring over the FPS crowd N64 had then GC would have fared better. PS2 still would have easily but Nintendo's success/failures come down to there personal decisions.

I should probably clear something up. When I say backwards compatibility, I really only mean digital BC. Not physical. I just don't want another Virtual Console reset or another "play old games through an emulated console." I should just be able to boot up my "Fusion Terminal" and boot up my digital copy of Wind Waker HD directly from the OS.

I truly don't get why Nintendo couldn't integrate the Wii's VC into the Wii U's OS and eshop. The 3DS does it with DSi ware. They need to start future proofing this stuff now if they truly want to make the transition of hardware seamless. There is no doubt in my mind that BC if here to stay, but they want it to be "like Android and iOS."

With that, it needs to be a seamless transition. Honestly, it needs to be a lot of what the XBO was in the beginning. Cloud based. Digital storage of games. Take away the DRM and inability to play games offline, and it's actually a... good idea...

Jesus Christ. I think I get what Microsoft wanted.

Who are you referring to?

The OP. 

Why not. I got all these ideas from what Android and iOS are doing. Something Nintendo says they want to emulate.

Well first of all, they would need to make a powerful console. That means it probably won't be that profitable. 

And secondly, the virtual console and idea of being able to keep your games forever doesn't sounds smart either. Think about all the lost money they could have made if they just re-released and sold the old games on their future devices.