Nikkei is not some trash rag fan site. They are the financial authority in Japan and have had several scoops on Nintendo before in the past. They are the closest media source to Nintendo quite simply put. 

I take them at their word. The Japanese stock exchange is the freakin' Nikkei. They're a financial hub and a business institution in Japan. 

If you run yourself into irrelevance, money won't do squat! You'll just lose more and more every year. And eventually, investors will bail the ship, and you'll have nothing.

There will be many developers that will develop for it. Mobile is getting tons of support already, now mix in physical controls being throw into the mix by Nintendo and mobile chips that are exceeding the PS3/360/Wii U in horsepower and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see where this is going. 

The best selling game console in history is the PS2 at 150 million which took ten years to hit that. 

Android devices ship 250 million. In one year. Every year. 

I've been around for a while and I've heard it all. I remember militant Nintendo fanboys saying during the GameCube that they would quit gaming and quit Nintendo if they ever allowed things like movie playback (hi Netflix on Wii) or other non-gaming features into Nintendo consoles. 

No, but having a costom android OS doesn't mean all the apps will be there. Plus, whos going to buy this? I can buy a phone in that case! Its a flawed concept, and its why the OUYA failed.

Can I play Mario Kart on the Ouya? Mario Galaxy 3? Splatoon 2? Zelda?

OUYA was a cheap indie funded platform with no marketing, no retail support.

Nintendo is a billion dollar corporation, not some guys in their garage who can't get Best Buy to stock their $90 emulator machine. 

I still don't understand the logic of just making a Nintendo version of Playstation/Xbox, they don't appeal to the same demographic and the PS/XB crowd of 13-35 year old males has wanted nothing to do with Nintendo for about 20 years.

Look at Nintendo's top 50 best selling games, 48/50 are what we would consider casual-friendly (kids, females, parents). So the logical choice for Nintendo is to pursue the casual crowd which they clearly did not this generation.

Yup, you can play all that on the Wii U, its why it hasn't even hit 10 million sold yet....

They did pursue casuals with Wii U and 3DS. Who the hell launches a platform with Nintendogs and closes an E3 with a fire works display from Nintendo Land? Not a company aiming for hardcore consumers. Though you're right. Sony/MS are established there and no one but a minority of loud of Nintendo fans on the internet want a "me too" third console.  

There was a revolution in casual technology between 2007-2010 that caught Nintendo flat footed is what happened. 

So now they are making some hard choices about their company's direction. 

Poor Super...

This is an insightful post.

Nintendo has already tried the playstation-killer option with the Gamecube and it didn't work.  The Gamecube was a ps2 killer when it came to technical specs but it really didn't really stop the gradual movement of third parties away from Nintendo.  People still thought of the Gamecube as the kiddy console even though it was powerful.  More importantly, The Gamecube sold worse then it's predecessor which is what might happen to the NX if Nintendo tries to repeat this formula (imagine, a console selling worse than the Wii U!)

Nintendo needs to get back to what they do best and that's making games.  They cannot compete with the platforms that Sony and Microsoft offer and I don't know if they need to.  I'm not quite sure what a Google/Android-based console will look like, but it sounds like a brilliant way to get Nintendo away from the nitty-gritty details associated with developing a modern OS environment and get back to making fun and unique games that are accessible to a large audience.