Everybody knows that excluding Wii, Nintendo consoles have declined. The general thought is this is due to the added competition from the likes of Sega, Sony & Microsoft coming and stealing their audience. Well I have another theory, Nintendo wasn't losing their audience to the competitors, their audience was gradually shifting from Nintendo consoles to Nintendo handhelds. Let's take a look at Nintendo hardware sales per generation pre-Wii.

NES-62 million, Game & Watch-43 million

SNES-49 million, Gameboy (89-96)-54 million

Nintendo 64-33 million, Gameboy (97-03)-64 million

Gamecube-22 million, Gameboy Advance-81 million

Each generation sold 100 million give or take a few million, with the handheld sales increasing at roughly the same rate as console sales declining. So what exactly would be the reason for people shifting from from one to the other?

Nintendo's best selling games and consoles are ones that emphasize on simple, pick up and play, casual experiences. As consoles became more complex by adding more face buttons, shoulder buttons, triggers, analog sticks, the games became more complex by default. Nintendo handhelds on the other hand retained their simple, casual style thus consoles began to decrease and handhelds increase.

With Wii & DS, Nintendo created the ultimate casual experiences thus sales exploded, with Wii U & 3DS they have reverted back to making more complex control schemes and games thus it is on track to becoming the worst selling generation in Nintendo history.

the numbers you are using don t add up-   to 100 mil per generation  or close-   The NES /Gamewatch and Gamecube / Gameboy Advance are close to 100 mil-  the other gneratons are higher/much higher   except the current generation which so far is much lower

Nintendo could do what the other two do. And just exclusive the games. By ponying up the cash. Yes. Hate is a thing. But at the end of the day. The people who whine "I won't buy it." Will buy it. IF and a big IF, Nintendo does normal things that people want/expect from their system. Omiting voice chat to whatever game, as an example, is a thing Nintendo can't do. But seeing how Nintendo won't do these things.

Weather I'm right, or they're right. They're stuck with very few avenues of strategy to deal with their situation. Or they could just accept 15 million console sales each gen. And live off that. Nintendo does have advatanages over MS. They're Japanese. Japanese companies will look at Nintendo first, even with MS pockets. If Nintendo offers fair money. AS long as the future system can be port friendly to whatever game. With basically zero difference in quality, features, and a Nintendo bonus. Such as DLC skins or whatever. I'll just say Hyrule Warriors and Soul Calibur 2 as examples. Where their stuff does help out.

Here's the thing with casuals approach. Nintendo has to make new games for them. Since Wii Fit 3 doesn't seem to work anymore. That's a gamble as well. When you get tired of somethings. Say a TV show. Do you normally keep tabs on it anymore? Or do you go onto something else. And not realize it's still going on or not. That is the issue Nintendo has to deal with in that area.

What doLes Hyrule Warriors haOve to do with this? L

That's a pretty simplistic way of looking at things. I'm assuming the point of having a powerful console, with a basic controller is to attract 3rd parties and get all the big multiplat titles that Playstation/Xbox recieve.

The only way that benefits Nintendo is if said titles sell well and move consoles for Nintendo. Now in order for these games to sell strong numbers and move hardware is by stealing sales from the other consoles. What exactly is going to make the millions of people who play games like Call of Duty, Battlefield, Assassin's Creed, Grand Theft Auto, Watch Dogs, Destiny, Need for Speed, Elder Scrolls, NBA 2K, etc jump ship and buy Nintendo hardware instead of Playstation/Xbox?

There has to be some type of incentive for these gamers to choose Nintendo's box over Sony's or Microsoft's. Is it Nintendo's 1st party offerings? Probably not since the majority of Nintendo's ip aren't aimed at the same demographic as AAA western 3rd party titles. Is the person who buys the annual release of Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, their favorite sport game, a racing Sim and whatever the big overhyped game of the year happens to be, going to choose Nintendo's box because of the like of Mario, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Yoshi, Pikmin, Pokemon, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Zelda, Metroid, Fire Emblem, Xenoblade? No probably not.

The only way that these people would move onto Nintendo's box is basically if one or both of the competitors make huge mistakes like $600 launch price or RROD or DRM/always online fiasco. Let's say Sony makes a big mistake, wouldn't these gamers be more likely to jump ship to Xbox since for about a decade now, Playstation & Xbox have been known for offering up similar experiences and vice versa? Basically Sony & Microsoft need to make huge mistakes for these gamers to jump ship to Nintendo and if ur strategy is banking on the others to fail than u have a pretty messed up strategy.

Yes they do add up.

NES-62, G&W-43, total-105

SNES-49, GB (89-96)-54, total-103

N64-33, GB (97-03)-64, total-97

GC-22, GBA-81, total-103

These 4 generations add up to 100 give or take a few

Wii-101, DS-154, total-255

Wii U-15-20, 3DS-65-70, total-85 give or take

We have 4 generations that have sold roughly the same, one waaaayyy higher, and one slightly under.

ok my bad-  I now understand your numbers in parantheses were the totals -  i was adding those to the home console numbers 

thanks for the response

Wait, I'm a little confused, the numbers in parentheses aren't the totals, that's splitting up the Gameboy sales between Gen 4 & Gen 5 numbers since it was a 2 generation device. So during the 4th Generation (April 1989-March 1996) Gameboy sold 54 million and during the 5th generation (April 1996-March 2003) Gameboy sold 64 million.

I think we're on the same page now, I just wanted to clarify just in case.