The best selling Dark Souls game sold just under 2M... Less than Prime 1 on the GC and Metroid on the NES, about the same as Prime 3 and more than Prime 2 on the GC. Bravo I guess?

Metroid does exploration in a brilliant fashion... Which is its core vfocus. And that's the reason why Other M and Hunters aren't real Metroid games.

Prime 1 and Metroid are the best selling in the franchise, the best selling Dark Souls (first game) on one platform (PS3) has outsold every other Metroid game.

True exploration is done well but then exploration can be done in many ways, Xenoblade, Skyrim, Fallout etc... all do it their own way, Metroid does it in a way that requires a combination of added mechanics which own their own are adequate at best but together they're good. As for OM and Hunters telling yourself that won't change a thing they're real Metroid games whether you like them or not, OM even allows exploration unhampered after the main story and is not too different from Fusion.

Moving goal posts... Prime 2 & 3, Fusion, Metroid II, Shitroid: Other M and Super Metroid outsold the second best selling Dark Souls game...

And it proves to be so successful on the Wii U...

Honestly, you seem to be the one not understanding Nintendo's policy. They always push their hardware to the limit. Not with every game (casual money grabs are money grabs ), but every single gen - their flagship titles always squeeze all juices out of their hardware. If they release a console on par with PS4, we will see Nintendo games with fidelity on par with Halo 5 and Uncharted 4. The only reason Nintendo games haven't been the best looking games the last two gens was because hardware was limiting them, but when you take a look at GCN, N64, SNES - they were all unmatched! Wii U has games with graphics better than any PS360 game. So no, there will be no "sudden start of emphasizing out of nowhere", it is regular business in Nintendoland and will happen, as it is a regular step forward. Contrary to what many may think, Nintendo isn't alergic to beautiful graphics and pushing consoles to the limit, they do this all the time. Some 1st party DS games look on par with PSP games, despite a massive gap in hardware! The thing is, this jump will require a limit of output, as higher fidelity games require more work and more money to be made, especially when compared to 3DS games. They can make a new 3DS Pokemon game in a matter of months, but it won't be the case should they jump to PS4 quality level.

Also, every company makes smaller titles (the Captain Toad, etc. level) for every AAA game they make, Nintendo isn't unique in any way here. Sony gives us games like LBP, Puppeteer, Tearaway, Fat Princes, Jorney, Sly Cooper, etc. all the time, not every Sony game is on par with Uncharted, Killzone or God of War. Nintendo is and will be expected to make full use of their hardware with games like Metroid Prime, Zelda, 3D Mario, Bayo, Xenoblade, etc. just like every other company does. And they will make it and the games will be glorious But the number of games won't be equal to current Wii U + 3DS releases, all I'm saying. Thus they may still struggle to avoid droughts on their own without 3rd parties, especially in the beginning. After all, Sony and MS are still in the process of making the jump to this gen, it's not like their blockbuster 1st party games have been released already and they had a shorted distance to travel and a lot of time.

Merging will surely help, but with another jump in graphics they may still struggle if they get no 3rd party help. Ahh... 3rd parties

-A game that gets people into the console's innovation (like Wii Sports and Nintendo Land did)
-Pokken Tournament/Fighters
-Zelda (the same Wii U game, maybe remastered or an adaptation to NX's control)
-Mario 3D
-Splatoon 2

I think Majors Mask is most harder 3D Zelda game, but Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime II are harder games, I recently played all 3 games. :)

If Wii U had 10 games in one year and 3DS had 10 games in same year, that doesn't mean now we will have exactly 20 games for NX, but we could have around 15 games for only one platform which is much better than 10 games alone for only one platform.

Yes, Sony (especially Sony) and MS also have drouths of 1st party titles so far, but with very strong 3rd partie suport people do not notice that, also many 3rd party games are much bigger than all 1st party games on Sony/MS consoles (Minecraft, GTA, CoD, Batman, Witcher, Metal Gear..) so it not big deal if Sony/MS have 1st party droughts, on the other hand, on Nintendo consoles you almost never have 3rd party game that is nearly popular like 1st party game, the only exceptions were Rare games on N64 but Rare was 2nd party studio not 3rd party.

Of Course that merging will help a loot, Nintendo dont think they will solve all droughts problems with that, but that will make things much better than this gen, for completely solving this problem they need better 3rd party support than they have for Wii U, at least like they had it with GameCube. Announcing DQ11 and DQ10 port for NX is good sign for now.

Please play Zelda II! You certainly won't regret it, trust me!

I think what we are disagreeing on is the strength of Nintendo's next-gen hardware, u seem to think it will be on par or exceed PS4, I think it will be a slight bump over Wii U similar to the gap between GC-Wii while the handheld will have a full generational leap and be about midway between Vita & Wii U similar to how 3DS is between PSP & Wii. In this case, no Nintendo will not be making games with the scale or budget of Halo 5/Uncharted 4.

And ur right, having a fully unified ecosystem where all games are available on either device does not necessarily mean Nintendo will be able to release the exact same amount of games as they currently do on 3DS+Wii U but the overall output will still be greater that what each current device gets seperately. Each year Nintendo releases about 25 games give or take, split up between 2 platforms so roughly a dozen titles each. Even if the overall output decreases from 25 down to 18-20 in a given year, that's still a significant increase for each individual platform making them each a more desirable product.

As for 3rd parties, ya Nintendo may not get every blockbuster AAA title that PS/XB receive but people seem to conveniently forget about the 3rd party support that Nintendo still gets on the handheld front and that will transition over with a unified approach. Japanese 3rd parties+kid/family friendly western titles+growing indie support is what to expect for Nintendo's next-gen devices with any potential AAA western support being an added bonus.