They'll be like brothers, not like twins. I'm seven years older than my brother (nothing important now but quite a difference when we were younger) and we are very different physically. Yet we have the same surnames and brown eyes. That's what I think Iwata meant to say with that comparison. Both devices will be "Nintendo" and both will share the same OS, something that would allow them to share some of its library. After all, not every iPad App works on an iPhone and viceversa, so there's no reason to assume that every game has to run on both devices.

And despite what it looks like, very few Nintendo games can be considered taxing on the hardware side. Don't get me wrong, they are very pretty and their art style makes them stand above the competition (both in their machines but also compared to their competitors offerings), but they generally don't make their hardware sweat.Take the last Smash Bros as an example. It's the same basic game on both versions just with the graphics adjusted down for the 3DS. And that's with a machine that's not more powerful than a Wii and another one that's more powerful than a PS3/360. And with completely different hardware.

Is there a reason why Captain Toad couldn't run on the 3DS? Kirby, Yoshi, Pikmin, Donkey, Wonderful 101, Mario Kart or Tennis...? There are lots and lots of games that look great on WiiU that could run on the 3DS (Hyrule Warriors being the latest example, though that's not a Nintendo game). And on the other side, there will still be games that would be impossible to port from WiiU to 3DS like Xenoblade X or Bayonetta, but there are also 3DS games that while could run on WiiU, they don't fit in a home console.

And that's the way Nintendo should go: launching those brother-like machines that can share 90% of their games library but that also offers something unique for the ones that prefer playing on the go and for those that prefer playing on a TV.

And the usual Third parties talk... well, by now Nintendo should have realized that they can only count on themselves, so while they shouldn't close the door to Third parties, what they should do is consider their own needs first and then, if the others want to come onboard, welcome them.

Lack of interest is really hard to buy as a viable excuse when it comes to a system where everyone could expect a minimum of at least 50m systems being sold. In the end game development is a business, so foregoing working on a platform because you don't feel like it is... well, it sounds really selfish.

Power might be part of the reason, but it's meaningless to have power when the result is still that a lot of games would be absent because the reasons go way beyond power. Ultimately, the reason why various third parties would not develop for the Nintendo console could be once again described as "devs were just not interested". And if power isn't the cure to lack of third party support, then it really isn't important how powerful Nintendo's next system is. What matters is that the system sells and there's simply no evidence that power has ever helped Nintendo to move hardware.

I suspected that you would name those four systems. The problem is that the NES wasn't a me-too system and that the N64 and GC can't be described as successes. So there's only one console left and even that one declined in sales from its predecessor; furthermore, it was also launched in the pre-Sony and Microsoft era, and the market dynamics have clearly changed a lot since then.

You are right that Nintendo could have produced a 1 teraflop system with 4GB RAM if they spent the money on processing power instead of the Gamepad, but what makes you believe that it would have sold? When it comes to power, it would have still been behind the PS4 and X1, so the market at large would have decided to wait for the other two systems before making a decision. When it comes to third parties, some of them would have still not developed for the Nintendo console for whatever reason they could come up with, which in turn would have made the decision for the market easier to buy a PS4 or X1 instead. Lastly, launching the console with a standard dual analog controller would have turned off the Wii audience even more than the Gamepad did. In the sum Nintendo would basically be at exactly the same point as they are now, trailing far behind the competition in sales.