Only if they change their business practices and actually get 3rd parties to want to work with them. They won't survive on their own, regardless of what people think. Other consoles and expecially smart devices are eating into their marketshare. They need more dev support all around.

and yet they are a profitable company... vs other company's gaming division....

How much of that is due to their handheld? I am speaking about their home consoles.

Also they posted losses this year as well, don't act as if their shrinking sales potential won't lead to further issues down the road. They aren't invincible.

Don't be shocked either if the WiiU sells terrible this holiday season. Believe it or not kids these days play a little game called Minecraft and guess who doesn't have it? That game is crack for kids, no joke. Parents get their kids iPads to play Minecraft. That or Playstations or XBoxes.

lol but making them 3rd party would further hit their market esp with their handheld... yes they had loss BUT they had NET PROFIT...

don't be shocked that nintendo still make more money than sony or microsoft's gaming division.... they sell more games than sony and microsoft's 1st party game... cause third party games keep a lot of the sale money

Yes, they made profits eventually thanks to releasing games like MK8 and Smash, but will they have those every quarter? Every year?

My posts are entirely aimed at being 3rd party for consoles. If they wish to continue then they need to stop with asanine concepts like a gamepad when it serves no justifiable purpose and only goes to show they should have stuck to the Wiimote w/ the Pro Controller (Both packed in) and gave the console more juice. Maybe work with 3rd parties for a change. That or stop acting like nothing competes with them, like how Iwata continually stated that he wasn't worried about mobiles and now look.

However, if they go 3rd party on mobile I believe they should go iOS exclusive. It would give them great exposure in the mobile scene and no doubt they would always be the featured games in the Appstore when released. Developing would be easy since the hardware is the same across the board and the OS is fine tuned to make full use of the hardware. It's the ideal environment for mobile devs.

Anyways you obviously disagree and believe Nintendo can forever survive by just their own games and constant rehash of Mario, Zelda, Smash, Donkey Kong and Metroid. Yes, maybe they can, but don't expect beefy consoles. The home consoles will see minimal improvements since $350+ console prices just won't fly when you don't have the 3rd party industry behind you.

You keep your opinion and I will do the same. The conversation can't really go anywhere from here.

What about the gamepad makes WiiU games special to the point where they couldn't be done on a PS4/XBone? In game map on a controller rather than pressing the start button? Anything special about it for MK8, Smash Bros, DK Tropical Freeze and SM3D World? The fact that what might possibly be their biggest title this year, Smash Bros. promotes the use of the pro controller and not the Gamepad completely contradicts that entire bolded statement. 

From what I see it doesn't really bring anything worthwhile to the table to justify the quote you bolded, unless off-TV play is what everyone is excited about, but I do that with my Vita and it was cool for a day or so.

First of all, Nintendo has been making consoles before the Wii U, so if you're going to ask that question, don't pretend like there haven't been many, many examples of first and third party games that either wouldn't be possible or as fun if they were made on a plain-Jane console with a standard controller.

Have you seen my sig? I obviously know Nintendo have made plenty of other consoles and guess what? Most of them used plain-jane consoles and a standard controller, just like Smash Bros WiiU will. NES? Regular controller. SNES? Guess what?! Standard controller. N64? Must be different right? Nope, pretty standard there. Gamecube? Now things change! Oh what's that? Standard controller? So I guess Wii changed things and they tried to replicate it with the WiiU. From my vantage point it seems Nintendo have made plenty of games that were possible elsewhere since they used standard controllers. *Standard as in what we see today, being d-pad, 4 face buttons, shoulder buttons, analog sticks.

Second, explain to me how Nintendo Land would work on PS4/X1. Or Zombi U. Rayman Legends is on other platforms, but the Wii U version is the definitive one, and the sales show it. Pikmin doesn't require the Gamepad, but it sure does make the game better with it. Are there many examples? No, not yet. But you asked what about the Gamepad makes the Wii U special, and I gave you some examples. And

Big whoop. ZombieU made decent use, but it wasn't even a Nintendo developed title. Also forget about just Pikmin 3 not making any real justifiable use of the Gamepad. How about MK8? Smash? Donkey Kong? Maybe SM3DL? These are games made by Nintendo and they can't even find any real justifiable use for their own "special" gamepad. They could all play perfectly fine with a plain-jane standard controller.

Finally, I believe you misunderstood the point; it's not just about the controller or other things that we the consumers see, it's about what's under the hood. Nintendo developers get the most out of their hardware because it is made for them, and they can focus on getting the most out of only that hardware and optimizing it without having to worry about things like parity and portability (see: Ubisoft and Assassins' Creed). In the same way you expect Naughty Dog to get the most out of Sony hardware, you expect EAD to get the most out of Nintendo hardware. Much of that would be lost if they didn't have their own console to focus on.

Yes, it is made for them, but ONLY them, which is why they can't really get 3rd party devs on board since they don't want to have to invest time and money into finding use for the gamepad, especially when Nintendo themselves cant even do that and when 2/3rds of the consoles don't even use things like the Gamepad and/or Wiimote. More power, proper online infrastructure and Pro controller bundled from the start and more willingness to actually work with and respect the 3rd party portion of the industry and you probably would have seen many of these 3rd party titles on the WiiU.

Nintendo consoles don't sell because of a special looking controller or Nintendo innovating in terms of how to play. People bought Nintendo consoles for their games. So making a console like the others wouldn't hurt since they will always have the strength of their own IPs to go along with all those 3rd party titles.

Wait, I changed my mind, one more thing:

"From what I see it doesn't really bring anything worthwhile to the table to justify the quote you bolded, unless off-TV play is what everyone is excited about, but I do that with my Vita and it was cool for a day or so."

Yet another comparison of a handheld console to a home console. I can't believe you had the nerve to bring up justification and Vita in the same sentence. Sony should just kill the Vita and make its handheld studios go third party, assuming they still exist.

Seriously? How the heck did you undertand it in such a twisted manner? I wasn't comparing a handheld to a console. I was obviously comparing the idea of off-TV play, and yes, Sony should drop out of the handheld market. 

I think you overestimate the amount of people who would buy their child a Nintendo tablet over an iPad.

Their marketplace would just never be able to compete, especially if they continue the same issues where 3rd parties don't even give them the time of day. They would be better off just making their games iOS exclusive since the device is already built for games and the hardware is custom tailored to work perfectly with their fine tuned software, just like how Nintendo fans like to say Nintendo does.

I firmly believe that if Nintendo tries to enter the tablet market they would flop big time.

Well, for one I am assuming that Nintendo's offering would be $100-300 cheaper than an iPad. Part of the idea is to give parents who are currently buying 3DS's for their kids an alternative to an ipad for their next device. If, say, Nintendo could release a tablet that, at first glance, appears to do everything the iPad does, but plays Mario and starts at under $200, that would at the very least catch their interest. These parents also should be theoretically willing to spend more money on individual games than most current iOS and Android users, which is a major hurdle Nintendo would have to overcome if they were to release their games on iOS. Hardly anyone is willing to spend the $20-40 Nintendo needs for their current standard games.

Nintendo has a severe lack of 3rd party support on console, but their handheld support is still pretty decent. My idea hinges on the assumption that most current 3DS developers would move on to Nintendo's next system, along with a decent portion of the install base. I'm not very familiar with iOS, but I know that on Android a game hardly has any hope of success if it isn't F2P. The cheapness of the installbase has resulted in an overabundance of shallow time-wasters and a dearth of quality titles for the platform. Devs shouldn't run into that problem on any Nintendo system, since the core Nintendo fanbase would still be around.

Also, it's not necessarily about beating Apple, or even really closely competing with them from a sales standpoint. It's about creating a sustainable platform that's attractive to the development and success of both casual and "hard core" videogames. Nintendo doesn't need to sell 40mil systems in a year to accomplish that. Heck, snatching 2% of the tablet market would be a feat, and should be enough to halt the slow death that they're currently facing.