It was just a flattened directional input ... a flattened joystick. The Sega Master System had the same type of controller. It didn't sell a ton of units. 

The huge difference between the NES and Sega Master System was the software ecosystem ... the NES had hundreds upon hundreds of games in every different genre and basically a 100% monopoly on third party content.

Sega had some very nice 1st party games, but couldn't compete becaue they had nothing else. 

It wasn't just Mario and Zelda. You couldn't play Ninja Turtles (and that was *huuuuuuuuuuuge*), Megaman, Contra, Tecmo Bowl, Blades of Steel, Duck Tales, Maniac Mansion, Tecmo Bowl, etc. on a Master System.  

Ahhh, growing up in the 80s/90s ... there was always the "weird kid" everyone knew who ended up with a Sega Master System instead of a Nintendo, lol. 

They should all just give up and agree to a universal platform in that case. 

If it finally gets Nintendo to listen to third party, it couldn't hurt.

It's another gimmick driven platform from the sounds of it. 

In other words don't expect big third party support. 

It will be out of step with the general industry curve, just like the Wii and Wii U were (lower end graphics with a controller gimmick). 

Fusion style game sharing will ensure Nintendo really doesn't need third parties to have a steady flow of games anyway though, that's the whole point of a cross platform. 

I suspect third party support in the sense that the 3DS has third party support (Monster Hunter and a few other notable things). 

Basically think of a system with 3DS level third party support + all/most of Nintendo's games on one unified ecosystem. For Nintendo (at least in their internal logic) that's probably good enough. 

I think Nintendo is finally going to concede and create a more powerful console thats friendly to third party devs. They know the PS4 and Xbox One are going to be out for a decade, so it wont hurt them to release a new console in 2017 that matches their power.

Based on Iwata's comments ... nope. He just straight up said another "standard" console would be boring. 

Expect gimmicks, now that the shareholders got what they wanted with smartphone games, Nintendo has carte blanche to go even crazier with gimmicks. 

That was probably the price that had to be paid ... to be able to make NX the way Miyamoto and co. want (wild and wacky) they had to agree to cave on the smartphone thing. So Nintendo opted to cave. 

3D tracking glasses that create smell and blow wind? Stuff like that (they already patented this idea last year). 

A system that "matches" the PS4/XB1 but is four years late would only get slaughtered by the PS4/X1 anyway ... no one is going to be impressed by that other than like 10 million Nintendo hardcore and third parties will just opt to stick with the PS4/X1 which will have far larger userbases. 

Yeah, Sony's ten year plan causes them to have each console out for a decade. Microsoft only following Sony's plan to make sure they make sure they don't reach their potential and step in on it. Nintendo might not get very many people to jump to their side, but a lot more people would have a chance of going Nintendo if they know third party are coming. SNES and NES style Nintendo platform run would do Nintendo some good. A great mix of first, second and third party.

Ego-Shooter Mario?

Nintendo should learn by now that gamers don't want new things, they want the same old with better graphics

Not again. I was surprised with the Wii U already. I was so surprised that it was the first nintendo console i did not buy.