Nintendo's situation is not like Sega, in actuality Sega's situation really was nothing like anything in the industry. 

They launched the Sega CD in 1992 for $300 ... which was double the price of the Genesis at the time would be $474 in today's dollars (think about that for a second). After 2 years of wishy washy support for the Sega CD, they then launched the Sega 32X, which they supported for oh ... three months. 

They then "surprise" launched the Sega Saturn out of nowhere in spring 1995, just seven months after the Sega 32X. 

And they basically gave up on the Saturn in the US by Jan 1998 (they tried through fall 1997 with that three free games Saturn promotion and basically threw in the towel after). 

So no. People who play the "Sega card" need to actualy do their home work. 

And really, even after *all* that (lol), they actually had a very solid Dreamcast launch, the Dreamcast fell apart once it was clear Sega couldn't financially support it because they ran out of money. 

The NX platform could basically addresses your later point ... by having a platform that shares games between portable and home console, they basically are "going handheld" but still can enjoy the perks of having a dedicated console (ie: sales of controllers and accessories). 

Not with HH still doing 40mil+. Even if Consoles failed, imagine all their resources for that. Nintendo wont end easily at all :)

While Sega was foolish with the Genesis add-ons, doesn't really change my point. The Wii U also had a solid launch.  But, just like with the Dreamcast, things change when a competitor has a more wanted product.  And no, a NX platform would just mean there is even less reason to own the home console, since any of its games can just be played on the handheld. This would cause unecessary costs of producing an unwanted home console and its various peripherals.

Nintendo needs to focus on handheld gaming and try to stop the decline there.  Otherwise they may start losing their real cash cow.  Nintendos best bet would be to make a decently powerful handheld.  Throw a mini-HDMI port on it and allow games to be played with Bluetooth controllers for TV gaming.  This would also mean no more droughts and plenty of 3rd party support.

I just made a thread about it but in each of Nintendo first 4 generations, their console have declined at the same rate that their handhelds have risen.

NES-61 million, Game & Watch-43 million

SNES-49 million, Gameboy (Pre-Pokemon)-54 million

N64-33 million, Gameboy (Post-Pokemon)-64 million

GC-22 million, Gameboy Advance-81 million

In each of Nintendo's first 4 generations they sold roughly 100 million units of hardware and 500 million units of software. The breakdown per region is pretty consistant as well, Americas-50m, Japan-25m, Others-25m, give or take a few million for each.

Wii/DS were clearly outliers, selling over 250 million units of hardware and nearly 2 billion units of software. 3DS/Wii U has normalized in Japan/Others going back to the 25 million range while Americas has seen a big drop, probably around 30 million this generation instead of the 50 million baseline it had pre-Wii/DS.

The biggest problem Nintendo faces is getting back the American crowd they have lost, it will be a challenge but not entirely impossible. I don't think they should abandon consoles, rather they should fully unify their handhled and consoles by making seperate devices that can share a library. Make the handheld somewhere between X360 & Wii U in terms of specs that can handle Wii U level visuals at 540p and the console a souped up version of that can play the same games at 1080p with some extra graphical effects, something between Wii U & XOne.

Think of it like iPhone/iPad in a sense, iPhone has the A8 chipset while the iPad has the A8X chipset that is just a more powerful variant, for the most part they share all the same games/apps just at different graphical settings.

Around two years ago, I said that I wouldn't be interested in the next Zelda until we had a name and a release date. Today...we still have neither.

Still waiting to be interested.

Welp, there goes 2015 for being the huge, awesome year where all three console makers put out their biggest exclusives. Zelda U and Uncharted 4 are gone, all that we have left is Halo 5 :/

The "not at e3" part is worrying to me, makes me question the 2016 launch, too.

Don't know if anyone said this (skipped more than one hundred posts), but i think i know where the delay might come from.

This is what Aonuma said in 2013:
"Our mission in developing this new Zelda game for Wii U is quite plainly to rethink the conventions of Zelda. I'm referring to things like the expectation that the player is supposed to complete dungeons in a certain order, or that you're supposed to play by yourself."

We already Aonuma talk about the dungeon part but we never heard anything about not playing alone part.

Something came to mind: the new Nintendo network made by DeNa.
It's a platform that will connect several devices includin Wii U! Problem is that the new online infrastructure won't be coming out before Fall.

What if Aonuma and his team saw what the infrastructure would allow for and came up with even better ideas for that second goal?
If that is the case, it could explain why the game will not make the 2015 release date.

Zelda XIII Versus: The Last Triforce Guardian

Confirmed ;)

All the existing online play wiiu titles seem to contradict this theory entirely,  as does miiverse.