That's fine but I don't think Nintendo has any interest in making games with that level budget. 

If they want to compete with Sony they have to make a system on par with the Playstation FIVE (yes 5). Not PS4. 

No one will care that Nintendo is launching their version of the PS4 like 4 years later anymore than people who own a PS3/360 are impressed with a Wii U (read: they're not). 

Nintendo is just going to exit that whole pissing match entirely I think. Zero interest from them on making games with a monstrous PS4 sized budgets too (some of those games are going to end up costing the same as a Hollywood movie). To be honest most of their games really don't even push the Wii U to its max, Mario Kart 8 and Xenoblade are probably the only two that really make the system work hard. 

Fusion will be mainly a portable platform that has slightly better than Wii U graphics (just like the GCN to Wii transition). If you dislike handhelds or also want to play your Fusion library at home on your TV ... they will offer a home variant using the same chipset, just overclocked/with more cores IMO. But it will just be more like a bonus thing, not a life-or-death/must-sell platform. 

That's what we're headed towards. 

Who knows too there could be other changes coming to what we think is a traditional hardware model. Like for example say Nintendo not only adopts Apple's concept of a unified platform structure, but how about new model hardware that is upgraded every few years? The New 3DS kinda hints at this, and it makes Apple a ton of money. Perhaps you'll see Fusion 1 in 2016, and Fusion 2 in 2018 or 2019 and Fusion 3 sometime after. 

Nintendo may have made some of the "rules" of the traditional hardware market, but that doesn't mean they're married to any of them, especailly when a lot of these concepts aren't work for them anymore. 

They finalize and mass produce late in the process, not build and test. 

Wii U will be discontinued in 2014.

And Red Dead Redemption looks better than anything on Wii U. 

;)

They design decisions are likely made already in Japan anyway by the main hardware unit. They were just looking for a new head for the American unit. But the job listing provided clues as to what they're working on (System on chip design, low power consumption). 

Who knows, maybe Nintendo will also break the tradition of having one piece of hardware and not changing it for 5-6 years. 

Apple makes a fortune refreshing their hardware more often, and since Nintendo doesn't third parties to worry about, they can change their hardware more often and keep quality control over their releases without as much fuss. 

The New 3DS might be an example of this new strategy, so like I said just because Fusion launches in 2016 ... perhaps they still need hardware engineers as the hardware evolves over time. 

New console will launch in 2017, so it has a 5 years like most Nintendo consoles (Some had 6 yrs like the NES and Wii)

My personal feeling is we'll see it at next year's E3. The portable version anyway, they may save the console variant for a later time.

Nintendo's handheld shipments are sinking fast

12 million last year

Headed for about 10 million this year

7-8 million for 2016?

Nintendo simply can't sustain profit if their hardware drops this low. Yes they were profitable during the GBA/GCN days but people forget they were selling almost 20 million GBAs a year in those days and merchandising Pokemon out the wazoo in the early 2000s.

If 3DS is sinking to 10 million/year already, they are in trouble.

They must have new hardware ready for 2016.

I would hope a collaboration between the companies, or maybe Nintendo Japan is kind of reaching out to the West and gathering ideas for their next console Worldwide (pretty much meaning Japan and US as they are the major video game markets, and hell the US being more of an ideal region to win over fans for home consoles). A man can dream right. I think putting Reggie in charge of a gen is exactly what needs to happen. 

Yes, but apple doesn't have to worry about pleasing fans with new software. Games take much longer to develop than most if not all apps, especially apps that have already been previously made that just need a minor tweek to work on new hardware. Imagine if Nintendo released a system every 3 or 4 years. We're technically in the third year of Wii U right now. There just wouldn't be enough games unless they switched completely into mass production mode or emulate the game development of smart phone games *shudders*. This would mean no new ambitious titles and colaborations like Splatoon or Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem, and pretty much all Mario and Zelda. (If you are going to make a new console every 3 or 4 years it has to be profitable so what sells would take MAJOR priority.) Even the smaller 1st party games like Star Fox, Metroid, ect would just go away, or at best we could hope for one or two. All indie titles would pretty much devolve into smart phone games. 

Even beyond the number of games, consoles take time to max out their potential. We'd be getting games on a new console that could be played on the old console. And if we look at ANY third party or indie dev AT ALL then releasing two or three consoles before new game engines are created is another guarentee that games released will not look any better than a previous console. 

The short answer is no, unlike smart phones the value of the console is not mostly what comes in the box but how much you can get out of the box and the games it provides. 

Announcing the next system at E3 2015 would be a huge mistake; their remaining loyalists would feel backstabbed, and hardware sales would plummet between then and release.

It would be late 90s Sega all over again.

Nintendo won't revel a new portable at the next E3, unless they are even dumber than we suspect. The N3DS has just launched in Japan and Australia and we only know they'll launch it in USA and Europe in 2015. Do you really think they'll launch the N3DS only to revel its successor shortly after? That would be a really big slap on the face to those who bought the new machine.

Reveal the new handheld in E3 2016 and launch it in 2016 is a far better approach, which can be done again in 2017 with the home console.

is that bundle for real?