Nintendo has continued to struggle with the WiiU and it gets me to thinking will Nintendo ever be a relevant factor in the home console business again?

And to be clear i think Nintendo games in general will always have a relevance but I also dont think they can single handedly compete with Sony and Microsoft mostly because the audience that Nintendo appeals to is so small.  Sure the Wii was a success thanks to it becoming a phenomenon but that had little to do with Mario + Zelda + etc but more with the Wii mote and how casuals accepted the console.  But theyre gone and its more apparent every day with Kinect and WiiU

And this is what I'm saying.  If there is 10m fans of Mario then you are gathering a 10m fanbase for the WiiU.  And fankly Nintendo pushes mario down your throat with countless spinoffs, 3D, and 2D.  Mario is never ending but again its only a small fanbase if you look at the larger picture.  And this is where the problem is, that audience is the same audience who likes Star Fox, Pikmin, Zelda, etc.  All Nintendo games are focused on the same audience.  Its not very diverse.  They dont try to capture the other 100m's of people who like different stuff.

That is like Microsoft only being Halo.  It would appeal to about 10m people there for Xbox would only sell 10m lifetime.  Or Gran Turismo with Playstation.  However Microsoft and Sony goes for a wider variaty with things with different genres, different demographics, mature rated, and E rated.  Then to top it off they have more powerful graphics, better online, more features like achievements which to this day i dont understand why Nintendo wont add, and third parties that they cater to.  Its a much wider variety.

And then you think NIntendo and you mostly think E for everyone, mascots, and platforming.  WHile they do have other games like Xenoblade in general the games they push is very much Mario, Donkey Kong, etc which i think is a huuuuge problem.  Especially when you can get the same experience on a handheld now (3DS).

So, will Nintendo have to expand creating a wider variety in their portfolio?  Will they need to get away from the Mascot dominated culture and cutesy artsyles?  Or do you think that adding third parties to the mix will fix their problems?

Good article. I dont see Nintendo doing Wii numbers again. If they want to have that number then they need something unique.

This is an article? Anyway, I agree with your points.

This could have been a good "article" if it was published in gamespot / ign. I gave jaywood credit for making a good article like thread. Lol.

This is 200% better than any IGN/ Gamespot article. That QoL is killing the Wii U made no sense. That's like saying a The Last of Us movie would make Naughty Dog make bad games.

While success is a subjective term (for some users watching their console not selling 100 million consoles is a failure, for other watching it selling 70 is a success), I think that Nintendo is already aware that they need to expand their catalogue to be successful.

Bayonetta and Devil's Third are proof of that, or do you see Nintendo publishing those games during the Wii era?

Right now, Nintendo doesn´t seems to be worried about selling the same as the PS4 and XboxOne. They seem worried about making profits from their products and calm down investitors

I don´t believe that Nintendo will come again with a traditional console for the next generation. I imagine them working with a partnership to develop an hybrid of home/portable console or even a phone designes specifically to optimize gameplay. Whatever they bring, it sure won´t be similar to what Sony and MS are doing right now

I agree that Nintendo is in competition with itself in terms of supplying games to the hand held and console market. This gen is the first gen I've owned both since the N64 and gameboy.

I really hope they unify the platform into a Nintendo fusion like system. Nintendo are basically the primary content provider of two consoles and that's just insane. They're trying to do what no other company could do, but twice and at the same time! Ultermatly Nintendo's success won't be in emulating the rivals but in being completely different.

Of course what they really need to focus on getting right is not repeat the naming mistake they made with the Wii U. They must be kicking themselves every day over that.

Its not casuals that made Wii so popular, its that Nitnendo seemed to be getting back to its old school gaming roots, then they lost that momentum when it became clear that the developers at Nintendo hadn't learned their lessons and were only interested in making supergamecube games.

Wii U failed because from the beginning it was clear that Nintendo was not creating a console for those who were hungering for more Old School gaming.  Focusing so much on the mediocre gamepad and on "hardcore" experiences was a clear sign that nintendo has forgotten what types of games made them so successful i nthe first place.

Quite the opposite, they do need to make another Nintendo style console, but they need to look at NES, Wii, DS and SNES, not at GCN, 3DS and Wii U while making it.