I don't know what 101's budget is - but I really doubt it's comparable to Witcher 3, let alone Skyrim.

And honestly, I'm not sure I quite understand you or have I missread - are we're talking about mainstream appeal here? Cause if we are, no, Splatoon does not have mainstream FPS appeal, that is reserved for CoD and Battlefield, until something else of that sort shows up.

If not, sure they can make great WRPG on much lower budget, hell most, if not all, of my favorite WRPGs come from very modest studios - but honestly, they don't have quite a mainstream appeal.

Splatoon may not be COD, but I don't think that's really the point. 

There will be a Splatoon 2, 3, 4, etc. now because it's successfully launched a new IP. Splatoon is going to sell 4-5x more than Wonderful 101 or Bayonetta 2 and like 100x more than Fatal Frame. 

If they made this game on the original Wii, who knows, it probably would've sold like 5-6 million copies too, it's a shame it's stuck on the Wii U. But I think there is merit in making games in more mainstream genres. 

Splatoon doesn't have the budget of COD, yet it's still having some success where pretty much nothing else Nintendo has made on the Wii U other than Mario/Zelda based games have. 

If nothing else they should invest more in the shooter genre. It's actually a wonder they have largely ignored this genre for the last 15 years when in the first place GoldenEye and Perfect Dark were huge hits for them. Like seriously, this is completely ass backwards thinking. 

Also investing in FPS, but solitary single player FPS like Metroid Prime or Zombi U was a mistake too. GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, and Splatoon have appeal because they are multiplayer competetive games, I don't think Nintendo really understood why GoldenEye was a hit. 

they have devils third as a second shooter.

i want a gta like game. Well they had lego undercover..^^

Witcher 3 = Zelda wii u

Shooter = Splatoon / d.Third

Andything popular missing?

Well I'd say why finance Devil's Third, that would be better off financing a similar type of game from a Western studio. 

Zelda is fine, another fantasy type RPG to go with it wouldn't hurt though. 

They should have another competetive FPS (not Metroid, *competetive* Nintendo, no one would care about COD if it was just a 1 player game) in the portfolio. Splatoon + a FPS title is starting to get to decent coverage. 

Skylanders and Minecraft style games ... yeah sure why not. 

More sports games ... still missing. 

Also enough with these rinky dink small scale cross overs, if you're going to do a cross over then why not do a cross over that could legitimately be big? SMT x Fire Emblem realistically isn't going to do sh*t for the Wii U, but Zelda x Final Fantasy or something would. 

I doubt that SE would be interested in such a crossover. Plus it would take at least 5 or 6 years to happen. That would mean that SE would need to start planning for the system that comes after NX for a Zelda/FF crossover.

Yes I'm sure Square-Enix has no interest in another 3-4 million selling IP, when they whore out Final Fantasy in every way imaginable. "Nintendo Hearts" to be honest is something that should happen, it would make both Nintendo and Square-Enix a ton of money. 

It's really Nintendo that has the problem likely. They don't want to share the spotlight too much, so they purposely opt for lower key cross overs ... like Pokemon x Nobunga's Amibition or whatever ... talk about a completely freaking random cross over. I get that they don't want to lose control of their main IP, but if you're going to make these cross over titles, I think making 1 big one would be preferable to like 3 or 4 little ones that don't give you a big return.

Mario x Sonic Olympics, why not Mario x Dragon Quest? Which would sell more? Lets be real here.  

I think that the problem is that Japanese developers and companies don't have the slight idea anymore of what the western market wants. They create niche games, release games for previous gen platforms and take all the obnoxious decisions that they can. Just look at Capcom. They announced an E3 conference with Street Fighter 5 and a bunch or remasters. WTF. EA or Activision wouldn't do that.

If you look at the PS4, it isn't a Japanese consoles. It's a western console. Mark Cerny isn't Japanese and Sony US had more input on it than the headquarters. They had some flexibility where SCEA, SCEE and SCEJ had input on the console. We know that Nintendo is more restrict and that their strategy is defined by the Japanese headquarters, while NOA and the others are basically glorified puppets. So they created a Japanese console and create Japanese games.

It's more of a cultural issue and maybe it's a temporary problem. During the PS1 years, the american video game industry was in a low time with a lot of studios and publishers closing.

I think this is where Nintendo really misses Hiroshi Yamauchi, precisely because he wasn't a game designer. 

Yamauchi didn't give a crap about game politics or even the games themselves (lol), he was just a ruthless businessman. If there was money to be made he'd do it, and he was much more pragmatic about market differences. Nintendo would make things like Star Wars games and James Bond games and Killer Instinct and NBA games and baseball games ... because it made sense. Of course Americans like that sort of thing so we'll make it. Simple. 

The PS4 is an American console, but 20 years before the PS4, Yamauchi went over his entire Japanese division and signed a deal with SGI for the N64, which was basically a Western console. So he was ahead of the curve. 

I think unfortunately modern Nintendo is too mired in the red tape politics of Japanese game development tradition. Too many developers in charge, not enough business men. Too many people at NCL who feel their opinion should be heard because they've worked at the company since 1980-whatever. I really think it was Miyamoto that honestly pushed Yamauchi to make the N64 cartridge-only because he couldn't stand loading times, but as a result Nintendo basically handed over their strong hold on the game market to Sony. 

Just stupid decisions like that ... it's really why you want business suits to the run the business, not game designers. 

And really I think a lot of these games like Bayonetta 2 and Devils Third are basically greenlight by Nintendo in the "Japanese developer fraternity" type inner circle, they're all buds outside of work and they all talk shop and probably drink sake after work ... but this is not how you run a business by greenlighting games based on "Such And Such-San needs funding for his game, he's a good guy so lets give it to him"

Mario x Dragon Quest wouldn't sell outside of Japan. You can't blame Nintendo for protecting their IPs when they're so valuable. Look at what they can spawn. There's whole theme park rides being made based on them. Sony is chomping at the bit to get their hands on them so they can make movies with them. Their IPs are probably among the most valuable in gaming today. But it still doesn't mean that a big crossover would work for either company.

Well, I was going to say hack 'n slash, but they published Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge and Bayonetta 2 pretty recently.