When a company downsizes, you cut everywhere you can for investors, even your most profitable divisions starting with cutting temps and dead weight and then either asking the higher paid employees to take a paycut or replace them in house. Restructuring actually costs companies lots of money, people. You simply can't cut an entire division altogether, and in this case a profitable one, and say "That's that!".

This, at the point where OP thinks that the wii-u is worth less than $100 dollars that was about it for me.

OP would you mind chuckin up a pic of your Nintendo collection if you've owned every system of theirs? I just wouldn't mind seeing since I'm missing the virtual boy myself so would love to see a more full collection than mine.

I think eventually it will: Microsoft, Sony, and now freaking Apple, all three entities much bigger than Nintendo are competing for the gaming dollar. I'm looking forward to it, competition is a good thing and Nintendo could use a kick in the ass to keep them from getting complacent.

Part of me hopes it does go third party: it stands to benefit from the expensive infrastructure MSA can provide and I'd like to see Splatoon on PC.

Would you rather pay for quality (Nintendo console for Nintendo games) or watch them wash away to 3rd party crap

Haha and yes, Sony as a whole is doing incredibly well right now./sarcasm

Shifting focus...something like restructuring? And cutting down software output is what's going to happen if you cut profitable hardware that helps pay for software development (and I'm guessing the amount of software releases Nintendo has given over the years).

@OP

N64 had decent third party support, it just didn't get a lot of multiplats (aka PS1 games). But on the other hand it got quite a lot of pretty good third party exclusives.

GC had strong third party support, and there were only a few major examples of multiplat games it didnt' get. It's main problem was the opposite, in that it didn't get nearly as many third party exclusives, though there were a few, like the RE1 remake.

Wii had really strong third party support. It just didn't get a lot of the big multiplat titles like AC and Battlefield, GTA, etc., because those companies were too lazy to downport, even though in many cases the same companeis were perfectly willing to spend the time and resources to downport to DS, to PSP, and even iPhone. They would put SFIV on iPhone, but not Wii. Because that makes total sense. And they wouldn't port MvC3 to Wii, but they made Tatsunoko vs. Capcom for it, a game that was in some ways better. Again, makes perfect sense.

Wii U is the first Nintendo home console to have MAJOR third party issues. Let's be perfectly clear about that. It started out with GREAT support at launch, and if sales for third party games (and the system) had stayed strong, you'd probably still see great support right now. But that didn't happen. Instead, the 2013 drought happened, because Nintendo put too much of their resources into 3DS development, and not enough into Wii U. They have more developers and more teams now, and they've got a better grip on "HD development". But still, it was a problem they should have seen coming.

But this "Nitendo hasn't had good third party support since SNES" is a myth. SNES had GREAT third party support. Fuck, SNES even got a late port of SF Alpha 2. Which just puts more of the lie to their BS over not porting good Capcom fighting games to N64/GC/Wii more often. They are certainly having issues now, because many of the big publishers are losing money, even on other consoles, and aren't willing to "risk" putting their games back on Wii U.



Also, a future where Nintendo becomes Sega, and goes third party? Sorry, but fuck that noise. The reason we get so much great Nintendo software, is BECAUSE they have their own consoles to support. If they went third party, 80%+ of that software would disappear. And they would eventually becoming shitty and a shadow of their former selves, just like Sega is now. People actually want that? Well, then they're not terribly wise.

So all this time, Nintendo could've been a third-party developer with the same number of software output with the same number of quality software and would be able to do so now and into the future?

And this is where we'll just have to agree to disagree because in an era where many top video game developers are struggling to gain a profit through their AAA titles, I honestly don't see it being the same for Nintendo as strictly a third-party developer.

why?

they don't want to be branded a kiddie gamer :P

Yes I admit change is needed, however it shouldn't be drastic. For example, begin focusing a bit more on core gaming! The casual market is quickly dying, and only core gamers really remain!