Things were different back then though Nintendo held much more sway in the market and Sony/MS were just new comers. Now Sony/MS are firmly entrenched in their positions and Nintendo isn't looking to get into a pissing match with either bigger company. 

Iwata:

“If you do the same thing as others, it will wear you out,” he stated. “Nintendo is not good at competing so we always have to challenge [the status quo] by making something new, rather than competing in an existing market.

I think NX will be an interesting platform with the obvious great Nintendo games, but if you're expecting a PS4-PS5 killer, you might be sorely dissapointed. 

Nintendo of the 90s is not the Nintendo of today, things have changed. 

I never said I was expecting a PS4/5 killer; if you look at my sig, I've actually made a bet that the Wii U's successor won't exceed the PS4 power-wise. (At least not significantly)

I was just pointing out that SNES/N64/GC were not withered tech, hence they're not really examples of withered tech serving Nintendo well. (And GC hardly "served them well" anyway)

I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't even match the PS4. To have a scalable platform from handheld to home ... asking for PS4 levels of power likely using mobile chips is asking for a helluva lot. I don't think it's happening. 

I suspect the system will also be zanier/wackier than people expect. From the sounds of it, it will be "concept driven" platform like the Wii was. 

I'll go a step further and say I'll be surprised if it's much more powerful than Wii U.

My meaning was that because Nintendo launched after their rivals they could afford more power at a good price; thats why they had better graphics and all. They didnt use cutting edge tech back than either, because they didnt have to since they launched after the competitors and could use "mature" tech at a reasonable price. Withered might have been the wrong word. Mature might be better

Mature does work better, but if that's mature tech then so is, say, PS4 and Xbone.

They're not exactly cutting edge in the grand scheme of gaming technology.

Agreed. So I think its quite possible to launch a $300 console thats quite a bit more powerful than PS4, but if they wanna compete against PS5 it has to be cutting edge. I think Nintendo can forget all about luring the casuals to their home console; theyll be satisfied with Nintendos mobile games. So who then are there left to sell to? The "true" gamers, all of them buying a console. And how are Nintendo going to get them? With a powerful console and 3rd party support. If they cant do that they might as well quit home consoles all together.

I think the fusion concept will torpedo any chance of a truly powerful next gen Nintendo system. The home console will be held back by the limitations of its portable sibling.

The question is how the Fusion will work though? Will both handhelds and home console just share the same engines and OS? Or will they actually share the same games, as in play at home and pick up where u left the game while sitting on the bus? We dont know yet. If they share the same games, Nintendo will be losing out on a lot of profit since lots of people wont buy both platforms, and their SW might also suffer; a lpt of people bought Mario Kart for BOTH  3DS and Wii U. Do they really wanna part with those profits?

Isn't the whole point that they share an architecture, so they don't have to work to support two different systems with different games. We've seen with 3DS and Wii U that they simply don't have the resources to prop up two systems at the same time.