LOL, all this quibbling over who is hardcore. The sooner Nintendo stops wasting time catering to teens & adults completely the better - they purely need to maintain their steel grip on the family-friendly video games market space.

I don't think it is really about turning the wiiu around. It's about using the wiiu to continue to rebuild their reputation amounst dedicated gamers. Continue to release terrific games for the machine and add as many system features as they can. Would love to see wii-cheivements added as well as cross browser voice chat. Drop the price when they can. It's all about convincing core games who own an xbox one or PS4 to make the wiiu their second system. Make it cheap enough and have a huge lineup of incredible exclusives. Basically just keep doing what they are doing since they are well on the road to recover.

The wiiu was conceived as a half step system. One foot in the "wii" market and one foot in the "core market".  The casual is gone now for consoles. It's finished. With the next console they would have more succes with both feet into the "core market" when conceiving the console. Because that market is growing hugely.

I think owning two consoles is becoming passe too. Most people have a large backlog of games on just one console (even core gamers). 

Unless you're like 19 year old who can play games for 4-5 hours a day every day, most people just don't have the time. We're inundated with too many entertainment options these days, between Youtube, Netflix, PVRing ten different shows, having to watch the big game, etc. etc. I honestly don't know too many people who have the time to play through like even half of the acclaimed games per game. 

What grip? Most kids want a PS4 or XBox 1, even moreso than adults. By the time kids, especially boys get to age 9/10 they start to obsess over having whatever the "older kids" have. They want Call of Duty, not Mario. 

Nintendo hasn't marketed to teens since like the late 1990s/early 2000s. 

No i don't think it's becoming passe.   It's still very common for core gamers to have multiple consoles. There are fans of certain types of games that will buy whatever console they need to buy to play them.  Like a JPRG fan will end up having to own a wiiu for Xenoblade. Out in the real world I know very few console owners who only buy one system a generation and these are the guys who play 2 or 3 games a year not the dedicated gamers.

Nintendo will have an interesting choice to make next gen though. They can fully carry a console by themselves especially once fusion is in place. Do they focus on that and release a system which is a playstation 4.5 that can be sold at break even or close to it on day one?  This route will mean they will likely end up losing cross platform support eventually. Or do they compete againse ps5 and take some financial risk for a potential higher payoff.

I don't think their Fusion platform will even match up with the PS4. 

They don't need third parties for that, and their own designers probably feel like the Wii U as is is a ton of horsepower. All of Nintendo's games look great on the Wii U, even something double the Wii U would likely be more than enough for Nintendo's teams.

Something a decent jump above the Wii U with a low price point, profitable from day 1, easily scalable games (from HH to home), is likely the way they go. In fact I think their next "console" will basically just use the same CPU/GPU as the handheld, it'll just be one with more cores, allowing it to display the same games at 1080p resolution for the TV versus 540p or 720p on the handheld.  

I suspect some of their fans with grumble about this and then will see Mario Galaxy 3 and Monster Hunter 5 and what not and be sold, so their opinion doesn't carry a lot of water either IMO. 

Hardcore Nintendo gamers never left Nintendo. The Wii U is the most hardcore Nintendo console since the N64 with highly rated titles. The problem is the early adopter fans who generally buy third party more than likely don't have Nintendo consoles. Have Nintendo gain those peoples attention and they will get their sales back in some respect. Its going to be an uphill battle without third party though, especially if those people are young and in the know but short on cash.

Change "HARDCORE" into "Casual" in your title and your post. Then it becomes valid.

Zuh?

Wii U is aimed and marketed primarily at kids and the "family" crowd. Look at 95% of its commercials:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn3FrNb1X-E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dbGJieRaH0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD4qU0HCo40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fxQx7ZT-5k

PS4 and XBox One are primarily marketed at hardcore/older mainstream gamers. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKeptMVKlsY

The difference in marketing alone is massive. No one but Nintendo fans consider the Wii U a "hardcore" console in the sense that the PS4/X1 are. 

Did you miss the part where he said the most hardcore NINTENDO console?