1. Yes, Sony and Microsoft helped the industry, but like I said in a previous post, what is good for the industry is not necessarily good for gamers. Since Sony and Microsoft act as enablers for anti-consumer practices, I don't think that's anything that deserves kudos.

The only anti-costumer practice I see from them is paid online... But I'm probably ignorant to a whole host of other practices. Mind enlighten me? Genuinly curious.

I know that Mortal Kombat is held up as kind of the starting point or the crucial point for Nintendo's kiddie image, but Sega's marketing already worked really well before. In the specific case of MK, what is usually ignored with the focus on the removed blood is that MK on Sega had inferior controls; one attack button had to be omitted while the block function was assigned to the Start button. The game played awkwardly, but that this didn't matter highlights once again how little games actually matter. Instead it was all about the blood and an image.

But you have to see how that whole debacle hurt Nintendo? And even how it drove away 3rd parties in the end? I can only agree that it's a shame that games alone don't matter, but it's pretty clear that gamers want blood and violancce in their games, and that they did back in those days as well.

2. The Wii ads didn't prevent Nintendo from getting branded with a negative image right from the get-go. Instead of kiddie, it became casual. Like I said in a previous post, that's because kiddie simply doesn't work when so many adults are buying the system; and the purpose of projecting such an image on Nintendo is to make the own product look superior, regardless of if it actually is (see: Sega Genesis/Mega Drive). The smart thing that Nintendo did with the Wii was to go for people who couldn't care less about an image, that's why Nintendo could succeed despite the usual smear campaigns. You are free to believe that Nintendo could win over hardcore gamers somehow, but I certainly don't. Fortunately, Nintendo doesn't agree with you anymore, so NX will be  a redefinition of console gaming which rules out hardcore gamers as a primary target audience.

3. Sony and Microsoft's worthwhile first party output doesn't amount to much more than a handful to a dozen of games for a generation. Pretty much all the big games are third party titles on their consoles, so it's pretty hard to make the case that first party games play a vital role in selling the systems. And as such, it doesn't really matter what games Nintendo makes, because if it were really about games rather than image, then multiplatform games would be able to move Nintendo hardware just like they move Sony and MS hardware. But all the historic sales records show that multiplatform games do pretty much nothing for Nintendo. If you don't like the example of the Wii U, you can look at the GameCube. More capable than the PS2, cheaper, better looking games, but still a complete failure in getting the hardcore on board.

Are you talking about high scoring titles, or high selling ones? And we all already know that the PS and XB ARE indeed 3rd party boxes more or less, that it's those games that drive the sales the most. But it was Nintendo that made this bed themselves when they kept on being overtly harsh against 3rd parties. Sony never had to make an effort in gaining 3rd party support, but MS worked quite hard to get 3rd party support (and still do) and it paid off quite well last gen. It's about the games and image of course, and that's why I argue that Nintendo need to make games that drives core gamers to their console. Mario isn't gonna cut it. It's not what core gamers want the most, although they might pick it up once they got the system, but it's not the primary reason why they buy consoles. The reason why 3rd parties doesn't do anything for Nintendo is because gamers have chosen other consoles instead. Why did gamers buy the original PS? Better 3rd party games (more of them at the very least) and image. Nintendo have cultivated a family friendly image and have had very little violent games, but more grown up gamers (as in years lived, not mentality) quite obviously wants something else. It's not ALL about image, and it's not ALL about games.

4. I am not sure if your claim that the Wii would have never been made in such case holds up. There wasn't any company who approached Nintendo with touchscreens, but they still became a part of the Nintendo DS. If something doesn't come to Nintendo, then Nintendo goes after it. Same outcome.

So you think that the Wii and the Wiimotes would have been made even if Nintendo didn't get that tech from outside? That's... foolish. NOTHING suggests that this would be the case. Nintendo themselves weren't sure about it at first. They might have tried something else, but it would NOT have been the Wii.

The Wii U is not withered technology. I had this same discussion with curl-6 a few weeks back and you make the same mistake as him. The purpose of lateral thinking with withered technology is the creation of an affordable entertainment product that is profitable right from the outset; you aren't selling technology (which is outdated), you are selling entertainment (whose value doesn't depend on production costs). You look at the Wii U and say "far less powerful than the PS4", but I look at the system as a whole and see the most advanced controller in video game history. There is a reason why the Wii U is the most expensive Nintendo system to date, yet is still sold at a loss. It's because Nintendo abandoned the philosophy of withered technology. The same holds true for the 3DS. You would say it's withered technology because it's less powerful than the Vita, but the 3D technology doesn't come cheap and that's the opposite of withered technology (which refers to already refined manufacturing processes that make it cheap to use such technology).

Ok, I conced on this point. Wii U isn't withered tech. I think what I was getting at is that the power is lagging far behind the competitors.

As for the final point, of course it's hard to come up with new stuff that actually succeeds. Although the underlying point here is that Nintendo has to do it because every time they set themselves up for direct competition, they will get branded with an image of inferiority. And if even Sega could succeed with such a strategy despite having the inferior product themselves, then it should be clear that much bigger companies (Sony and Microsoft) will succeed as well. So to reiterate point 2, NX will be something new. This sets up Nintendo for a chance for success as opposed to the guarantee for failure that the Wii U was. Or in other words, if Nintendo defines the rules instead of making themselves subject to the rules of others (i.e. making a console for the hardcore), then Nintendo is in the driver's seat.

But isn't there something to the slander in that case? If EVERYONE have an easy time painting Nintendo as "kiddie" doesn't there lie some truth in it? It doesn't have to mean "Nintendo is only for kids", but rather "Nintendo doesn't offer what (core) gamers want". If we examine that last statement I think it's quite easy to say that Nintendo is "kiddie" because they have almost nothing for the older more "mature" audience. Like I said, that doesn't mean Nintendo games are just for children, but they offer nothing for grown men looking for something a bit "darker". They're looking for something that represents their age better than Mario. While "mature" games still are very much immature, they LOOK and FEEL like something for a 30 year old, while Mario doesn't. Mario looks family friendly, and if you want something that represents your age, well... CoD is better suited for that purpose. Not because it's a deep and profound game of any sort, but it's more similar to other entertainment you consume. If you consume movies like Godzilla, Edge of Tomorrow, Man od Steel, The Dark Knight - would you then go and play only Mario games? No, because they're not in the same age catagory as those movies. If you enjoy those kind of movies, you probably will enjoy Uncharted, Battlefield, Batman Arkham and such games a  lot more.

EDIT: Saw that you conducted the experiment.

Yes I have, but most gamers aren't like that. Most gamers go where the games AND image is. That's why PS have been so successful, or XB last gen (and even this gen).

It is still much easier to port between Xbone and PS4, which share an architecture and a similar RAM size and power level, and Wii U, which is architecturally different and has less memory and horsepower.

Even if Nintendo has some new controller gimmick that takes off, it will be copied very quickly this time around. EVERY big tech company is looking for next big thing, look at how many "me toos" are doing VR, the moment anything new has even the slightest hint of doing well, several companies, Sony and Microsoft included will copy it.

It won't be much different from the N64 having its analog stick and rumble pak copied within about a year. I mean shit, Sega even copied the analog stick idea before Nintendo could even release Mario 64. 

That said I don't even think they have something like that and they know it. They wouldn't have made this choice to support mobile if they were sitting on some miracle idea that could change the company's fortunes. No doubt before going ahead with the DeNA deal they did an internal audit of their R&D ideas for the future and gauged the viability of such ideas being able to carry the company going forward. They wouldn't have a company altering decision like that if they felt like their traditional hardware concepts for the future were good enough to lead the company to success. 

More likely what I suspect NX will actually be is Miyamoto's swan song and him getting license to make a console that's quirky/different for its own sake with the fusion concept also thrown in there, rather than being some Wii-like phenmonenon. There is no market audience that's underserved for gaming today as there was in 2003/04, we know where all the casuals are, they play on phones, Nintendo conceeded as much by bending over to the iOS/Android market. 

Gunpei Yokoi's "withered technology" philosophy was mainly supposed to be intended for handhelds, he didn't have much to do with Nintendo's console development and his last hardware concept (Virtual Boy) was a full-on bomb. The NES even was seen as a monstrous upgrade to what most people at that time looked at "standard console gaming", before the NES came, this was what most people though home console games looked/played like:

And that's a high end game, lol. The NES with multi-scrolling levels for virtually every game and far better visuals totally changed how people perceived home console games. For the average consumer in the 80s, the NES was very much as large of a technical leap forward as the PS2 to PS3 or whatever. 

Being easier to port between others doesn't equals being hard to port for wii u.

Being easier to port between others doesn't equals being hard to port for wii u.

That will depend on the game we are talking about, if its final fantasy XV for example then considering the differenr architecture of the wii u, the fact that has less RAM and less horsepower(wii u should be around the 400 or 450 gigaflops accounting the fixed shader parts), it will be very difficult to port and even the extra performance of the fixed shaders(comapred to programmabl they can give around 180% depending of the complexity of pixel and vertex shading combinations but wii u has half programmable and half fixed) it wouldnt be enough to math the xbox one, not to mention that this game is running at slighltly higher resolution than the 720p(sub-800p) and at 30fps, so the wii u version besides being hard to port will likely have downgrades like lesser enemies on display, less polygons and less detailed textures, etc

1. Shipping unfinished games for $60 and fixing them later... if the publisher feels like it. What's worse is that Sony and Microsoft subscribe to the same quality standard for their own games. Nowadays consumers are expected to pay a premium for console, games and online service, yet quality has gone down over time.

Shipping unfinished games is only the sympton of something else, namely having online connection. (And not having a Seal of Approval) And having online is far from anti-consumerism. It also means the publisher have the possibility to ADD new content or to tweak and improve some mechanic (even if the game itself is running just fine there might be some tweaks that can improve the overall experience). But I agree that the standards have fallen for the last few years, but Sony and MS have mostly shipped finished products. And paying for online is just wrong! But guess what? It's the consumers that's said they want it that way. Less then 10m people have said "I'm not buying in to this crap", and that's Nintendo fans. Close to 30m people have said "Hell yes!". It's just sad really.

2. Nintendo was able to maintain their family-friendly image, so it didn't really hurt them from that perspective. And when we look at the example of Sonic again (a non-bloody game), it's clear that the problem isn't "mature" games or a lack thereof. Nintendo loses out on people who are impressionable and gullible, and there's nothing that can be done about it. Third parties tend to take the path of least resistance and it's simply easier to sell games to an audience that has already proven that it is very prone to buy into marketing.

When I say it hurt Nintendo, I mean it hurt Nintendo's image with the "mature" audience. And that's what a lot of this discussion revolves around: Nintendo's relation to more adult gamers. Adult gamers don't want family friendly, safe and cuddly games. Well, most of them don't it seems. But I agree that most gamers are quite dumb, and that's why 3rd parties can sell half finished games and push mediocre games to new hieghts with marketing.

3. I am obviously talking about high selling games, because if we are talking about console sales, it's clear that the best-selling games move the most hardware. The thing is that Nintendo's family-friendly image is very valuable (expanding on point 2 here) because parents around the world trust the brand. Now what hardcore gamers want is a non-family-friendly image, so to even have a chance to appease them, Nintendo would have to completely destroy their family-friendliness. Mind you, at that point we are still only talking about a chance that hardcore gamers would change their mind. But it's highly unlikely that they would start to buy Nintendo, because over 30 years of history don't go away all off a sudden. Beyond that, there's no good reason why we should assign so much value to having hardcore gamers on board. There are plenty of other people out there who also have money, but show no hostility towards Nintendo's family-friendly image.

Is it really all that valuable though? How is their family friendly image paying off right now? It doesn't How did it pay off two gens ago? It didn't. The only time that image were worth anything was during the Wii era. And if parents trust the brand so much, why aren't they buying the Wii U for their kids? Let's remember that the initial ads for Wii U WERE aimed at kids and families, NOT the core audience Nintendo had said they were going after. Nintendo wouldn't have to destroy their family friendly image though; they could open up a daughter company that published western "mature" games. They'd be having the cake AND eating it too. Moms and dads wouldn't know that "Blood Storm: Rise of Vengeance" were made by Nintendo's subsidery, so they'd keep their image. Why wouln't Nintendo wanna go after the core gamers? They buy the most games, they spend the most dollars, they spend the most time of any gaming demographic out there. Most casual gamers have moved on and are playing mobile. How are Nintendo going to get them back to consoles? Like I've said so may times, what's needed then is a new Wii, and that's hard as shit to pull off. Nintendo have done it TWICE in their 30+ years in gaming, and one of those times they were HANDED the tech to make one of the consoles.

4. I already told you what suggests that this is a very likely scenario: Nintendo went after touchscreens for the DS because they had a certain goal in mind, and that goal necessitated that they experimented with any available technology. They also had a goal for the Wii, so if the people who had the motion control technology didn't contact Nintendo, then Nintendo would have contacted them to take a closer look at it.

Had Nintendo not been giving the motion control, the Wii might have been a lot more like the Wii U actually. At one time they were thinking about adding touchcontrols to the Wii. The DS influenced the design of the Wii, so without the tech from OUTSIDE, and it might have ended up a lot different.

5. Okay.

6. As long as Mario maintains a presence in the Nintendo catalogue of games, the perception of Nintendo won't change. This is closely related to point 3, so what you basically have to ask for is that Nintendo kills off Mario and other IPs altogether. Yes, this is insanity, but it's the only possible logical end of your argument in favor of appealing to hardcore gamers.

I don't agree with this assessment. I think NIntendo can change hardcore gamers opinion about them enough for them to buy the NX. Nintendo don't have to convince EVERY gamer to buy a NX, just enough to make it worthwile for 3rd parties to make GOOD ports of their games. But that means NIntendo have to have pretty decent specs in the machine.

7. Yes, most gamers aren't like that. They would buy Nintendo as a secondary console, if they already owned a PS or Xbox. And in that case, Nintendo is already selling to them, so Nintendo doesn't need to change to incorporate third party multiplatform games. It would be asking people to pay for redundancy (they already have a system that plays all the aforementioned third party games) which isn't an attractive proposal.

No, most gamers wouldn't buy Nintendo as a secondary console. Most gamers only have ONE console. If most gamers bought 2 consoles, the GC would have sold a shit ton more. 150m people bought the PS2, and only 20m bought GC, even though it only cost $99 at one point. If your theory is correct, the GC should have sold at least 50m units, so that 1/3 of all PS2 gamers had two consoles.

I think it's impossible that wii u's gpu only has 400-450 gigaflops, it simply doesn't match the games it already has. making a port 720p and (if necessary) some downgrades that only pixel counters notice, any game will run on wii u.

Oh only the DEMO is running at lower than 1080p resolutions so far.