But what exactly is the "Nintendo fanbase"? Someone who enjoys playing high-quality games spanning a multitude of different genres with vastly different play styles?

I feel like the only reason you ever comment on Nintendo threads is to downplay anything Nintendo does.  It doesn't even make sense for you to make a comment on this thread if you don't even play Nintendo games and always crap on every Nintendo thread or article you go onto. 

Nintendo fans like games that Nintendo develops and the characters within them. I won't touch that circlejerk.

It's just a weird statement that really makes no sense. It's like saying The Order 1886 appeals to the Ready at Dawn fanbase, nope it appeals to fans of cinematic games with high end visuals.

Xenoblade appeals to fans of RPG games

Codename STEAM appeals to fans of strategy games

Mario Party appeals to fans of local multiplayer party games

It doesn't make sense to branch together games that aren't similar to one another as appealing to one specific audience.

No, it's like saying The Order appeals to fans of Sony's 1st party efforts. Which is somewhat true as there are other cinematic actions games aimed at the same audience.  I'll stop because this will just be a circle.

Ok if we go with Sony's first party offerings, it's the same thing, Sony makes a wide variety of games spanning different genres and play styles. I would never assume that God of War's target demographic is the same as LittleBigPlanet's or that Killzone and Knack attract the same audience. Is there overlap? Of course, but it's the minority.

Nintendo and Sony have a bunch of different fanbases, they aren't just one collective entity of Nintendo/Sony fans.

Last comment I swear!

The only game that reaches outside of the audience is Xenoblade (which flopped on the Wii accordingly). While LBP is outside of the normal PS audience, the very deep level creator is often a good enough hook to get people into the game. While it's a fundamentally different game than some of the offerings, I argue that the overlap with Nintendo/Sony is far stronger than you let on.

Yes there are several genres that Nintendo has. But you need to remember what IPs really sell under the Nintendo brand - Mario, Pokemon, AC and Zelda but not that much. Then you have DK, Yoshi, etc.

We all know that Nintendo doesn't have IPs to compete to other genres - sports, AC, BF, COD. Those are the target audience that Nintendo needs to bring to sell more consoles. Mature games, Realistic games, etc.. These are the majority gamers of the market.

Nintendo does need more diversity in their lineup. Too many mascot centric games. I know they love their cartoony designs, but when 80%+ of your releases could pass as a Saturday Morning Cartoon, you are going to have some issues in attracting a truly broad gamer audience.

Their publishing in the 90s even was far more balanced, look at the N64's first three years

1996:

• Super Mario 64
• Pilotwings 64
• Shadows Of The Empire
• Cruis'n USA (Co Published by Midway)
• Killer Instinct Gold
• Wave Race 64
• Mario Kart 64