Even assuming Nintendo suffers more market contraction next cycle, which is highly possible, all the more reason to have a unified platform in that case so you don't get stuck with things like the next Zelda and Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart 9 or 10 selling to only a small chunk of your actual hardware base.

Lets say their portable line continues to suffer a bit at the handhelds of mobile/tablet and contracts to say 50 million down from about 68-70 million this cycle, then the console more or less is the same 15 million or so, that's still 65 million hardware units ... enough that you would want all your games to be available to all your buyers. Segregating software is just costing Nintendo money at this stage since they don't make much/any profit from hardware to begin with. 

Having to pay $500 just to play all the Nintendo games is a losing proposition too, even most Nintendo fans choose not to do that (those who own both the 3DS and Wii U are the small minority). The only thing a segregated library is good for at this point is keeping games like Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon and Bayonetta 2 locked off from selling to the 80% majority of the Nintendo user base. A game like DKC: Tropical Freeze is such a shame ... could have sold 2x-3x more easily I think, it just happened to be stuck on the Wii U and that's rough. 

They absolutely can be, and Apple is a great example of what Nintendo will need to do if Nintendo wants to be successful with this approach. However, there is no making a game for the iPhone 6 and it "just working" on the iPhone 4, or iPad, or apple tv. You need to test every change on each phone, on each iPad, and on each apple tv. That costs a lot of time and money. You often times need to revise textures, 3D models, animations, UI, controls (for apple tv) etc for each one of those models. That also costs a lot of time and money. Let me put it to you this way - why is it that there are a plethora of apps and games that are available for the iPhone, that aren't available for the iPad or apple tv,  or vice versa? Because it isn't as simple as "scaling it down". It takes time and effort to develop for each platform, and that all increases development cost, and thus it makes developing for that platform as a whole more expensive.

Another thing that Apple allows you to do that Nintendo probably won't is they allow you develop for thatever device you choose. Want to make an app that just runs on iPhone. Go ahead. Just iPad? All the power to you. Apple TV and iPad? Have at it. Will Nintendo allow this though? Something tells me they won't. If they are pushing for a unified platform they're going to want every game to exist on every specification, otherwise what's the point if consumers have to buy each spec to get access to the full library, right? Well what that means is that there are added development costs to develop on NX that developers will not have to endure to develop for other platforms. It means that NX will be the most expensive platform to develop for. That is a very, very hard sell if you're Nintendo and you're trying to convince third parties to come to your platform.

If that's the case, how is it done on PC? Nothing accomodates more than PC. It ranges form near super computers, all the way down to anemic set ups with on board graphics. They certainly don't run tests on each and every variation involved with that. Tests are done, without doubt, but they support different GPU's, CPU's, different amounts of RAM, different resolutions. I don't see why it wouldn't be possible, if Nintendo is creating a unified OS structure, API, Chip set and the like, to be able to actually scale down like you said wasn't possible. Just dropping resolution can change how a game runs in leaps and bounds, even with similar textures. Often with memory differences things like view distance is changed so that the computer can handle it. Could this not be a similar circumstance?  

If you really think that's Nintendo's best play - to take their ball, go build their own playground, put up huge walls around it, and sustain themselves off of the dwindling number of Nintendo fans until it becomes unsustainable, but what then? How is that really growing their business? They're just finding ways to leverage more money out of their existing fans.

Tell me this, how is an NX portable more appealing than a 3DS to a potential buyer? Because they're missing out on the Wii U-style games that they may or may not be interested in? I'm failing to see that as a reason to spend $100 more on a new platform.

You don't see why it wouldn't be able to actually scale down because frankly you do not know what you're talking about.

A PC game is made using PC game engines are developed for graphics card APIs which do a lot of the heavy lifting. If your game doesn't run well on a 2 year old graphics card - increase those minimum specifications! Problem solved. You cannot do that with a console. This is the core difference between console games and PC games. With PC engines you sacrifice performance to achieve compatibility. With console games, you only have (presumably) one spec, so you optimize your game engine for that single specification, and as a result you get far more out of weaker hardware.

Now if you want the NX to achieve the same type of performance you expect from console, game developers are going to have to put that much more time and effort developing engines that would be optimized for both specs. Either way it's added costs for the developers, and none of this changes the significant increase in testing costs.

No! You don't tell me! I will put in my invisible notebook! How can I never think about it! Nintendo fans = fans of Nintendo games! Wow! Mind blown!

I didn't say I know what I'm talking about. I asked a question. But your answer doesn't add up because of how similar consoles are to PC's now.

Differen't CPU's have different amounts of cache and even the ways that the processors work. Different GPU's, even from the same manufacturers, are always being tweaked and run differently. There are also the differences in RAM speeds that get accounted for. If the specifications are known for both a home and portable console that share the same API (which very well could be a version of OpenGL, which is fairly widely used) it is not that different from having a minimum specification for a game  and a recommended spec for the game to run on PC.

I'm not a game developer. Never have been, never will be. But some of what you say doesn't fully make sense, it very well could be that it's becaue it's out of my knowledge base, but there is nothing from what you have said to prove you are actually a developer. Normally I wouldn't suggest this, but perhaps name a game, or at least a company you have worked for. On the net I can say that I am whatever I want to be to prove a point, but without proof it's all just nonsense.

Well look at the devices I just gave as an example, the new iPod Touch & Apple TV. Both of these devices have the same SoC, Apple A8, the only difference in specs is the CPU in the iPod is slightly downclocked and the Apple TV has an extra GB of RAM. Wouldn't it be pretty simple to develop a game that runs on either device? Another example could be 3DS vs New 3DS, we have already seen games that are compatible on both devices but run better on the New 3DS.

Also when talking about control schemes, the New 3DS & Wii U Gamepad are pretty much identical. 4 face buttons, D-pad, 2 control pads, 4 shoulder buttons, secondary touch screen, accelerometer, gyrometer, NFC compatible. There is no reason to believe that the NX Portable & NX Console will have completely separate control schemes.

I honestly believe ur making it seem way more complicated than it really is, why do we have games that are available on iOS/Android/Windows/Steam/PS3/PS4/Vita/360/XB1/3DS/Wii U and that's not even taking into account the dozens of different iOS devices, dozens of Android devices and dozens of PC setups. Ur looking at games that are playable on 50+ different devices, we see this all the time and now it somehow takes too much time/money to make a game run on 2 devices with minimal differences? I'm just not buying it.

For me the problem with Nintendo is not just with its hardware, the problem is with their software as well. Near none of their 1st party IP works for me anymore and the IP of theirs I still do like has not had a good game (IMO) since before they went 3D.

It's possible that the 3rd parties would all of a sudden throw software Nintendo's way but I kinda doubt it. That ship has sailed. It's now been 2 years. A month ago I bought an XBONE to go along with the PS4 I bought day one. There is practically no room for the NX in my home, whatever form it takes.

There isn't an alternative play IMO. 

What you want is a magic PS4 competitor with a distinct library, and then I suppose the handheld is what? Like a PS3 level (because that can't just stay at the 3DS tier either). 

So OK, now you have two discreet platform that Nintendo has to somehow primarily support on their own. Japanese developers will support the handheld but probably pass on the console, just like they don't suppor the Wii U. 

Western developers will never give a shit about Nintendo. That's more the REALITY of the situation. Even putting aside the fact that the PS4/XB1 will have a three year head start at minimum, the fact is all these lovely "third party killer apps" really means hyper violent action games and sports games from Western developers, a genre type that doesn't fit very well with Nintendo's Disney-styled content. 

So unless Nintendo betrays what they are as a company and starts making Uncharted/COD knock offs and dramatically tones down the Marios/Yoshis/Kirbys/etc. of the world they'll always be labelled the kids company any time they try to directly compete against the Sony/MS. 

You'll have the predictable situation where Madden NFL or Call of Duty will come out and the PS4 version will sell 1 million+ opening month, the XB1 at 800k, and the NX version will probably be way down at 80,000. And then the excuses will start from developers predictably about how they can't put as much effort into the NX version or how this year they're skipping the NX because of demographic issues, blah, blah, blah. 

Nintendo IS their own unique part of the market for better or worse, denying it doesn't magically change it. 

Also who says Nintendo would mandate completely seperate builds for each game? More likely how it'll actually work is a developer who doesn't want to make two different versions can just go ahead and target the portable spec and then if they want they can make the game run at a higher resolution for the console spec and that can be the only real difference.