There have been a lot of rumors about the NX ranging from it being Nintendo's big break to the final nail in their coffin. We have seen dev kit reports, patent leaks, supposed tech specs, and even some thrid party developers jumping on board. The way I see it, there are 2 futures for the NX. 

The first is that the NX will be repeating the Wii U's life. Releasing well into the generation, the console will just surpass the consoles already on the market but have no gimmick or appealing design to draw in consumers. a year or so after release, Microsoft and Sony release their own Gen 9 consoles, the Xbox ??? and the PS5 leaving Nintendo in the dust yet again. Nintendo is then praised again for having some of the best first party games, but cant keep up with the competitors.

The second is that Nintendo goes the full mile and delivers a huge upgrade upon what we define as console hardware, so much so that it even surpasses the next Xbox or PS. Due to this, millions of units are sold in a few years and Nintendo is able to develop the greatest hits of all time. Due to the new hardware, third party companies are able to make NX versions of the game the definite version with the best visuals and framerates. also, Nintendo revives classic franchises like F-Zero, Metroid, console Pokemon. And due to the simpler architecture, VC games come in surplus with almost complete libraries of Wii, GC, and N64 games. 

Im hoping we get something more along the lines of the second one, although anything could happen.

I like your opinion
I hope it aswell that they deliver something amazing and groundbreaking

Releasing a console above PS5/XB4 level of power, 1-2 years earlier than the competition means we are looking at a $400-500 console from Nintendo. We have already seen that Nintendo has trouble supporting 2 separate devices at the same time along with just now starting to get the grasp of HD development so we are to expect them to be able to pump out games at a normal pace with a PS5/XB4+ level console and a PS3/Wii U level handheld? Ya that's never happening.

So a $400-500 Nintendo console that doesn't get many Nintendo games is somehow supposed to sell a ton just because it now gets multiplat releases of games that have little to no fanbase on Nintendo devices? The mainstream crowd of gamers that plays online shooters, sports, racing, open world action games is not going to all of a sudden start buying Nintendo consoles in droves. The audience isn't there so the games won't sell well so 3rd parties will scale back support and it ends up being Wii U again but worse because it's more expensive and has 1st party support.

lol the situation in not as black and white as you like to think.Making just a powerful machine is not the only answer, or only thing Nintendo needs to do to succeed.Marketing, software, third party, gimmick for good or bad also plays a part.Hardware, seeing the Wii and Ps2, is not definitive and even maybe one of the less important part.Sure, it needs power, but power alone leads to nothing.And power dosnt mean it will get support from others and great games.Its WAY more complex than that.Wayyy more

in the first option, why would sony and ms lauch 1 year or so after?
ps4 and xbox one are set to end their life in kind of 2020, imo.
A 2016 NX release would have 4 year in the market, and nintendo would release NX sucessor in 2021 or 2022. Probably more powerfull than ps5 and xbox4. So, 4 year as the market most powerfull console, 2 years with a less powerfull console, then more 5 years with the most powerfull console.

That second future you described was the opposite path the Wii took. You know, the biggest comeback Nintendo's ever had?

If anything, the second scenario sounds like the Xbox 360. It leapt to next ten early, was way ahead the PS2 in terms of hardware, built on prior successful series using new hardware and online play, etc. Eventually, it tripled the sales of its predecessor.

Problem is, it took three years for the 360 to start making a profit. Before that, it lost Microsoft billions. I don't think Nintendo wants to invest in a platform that takes so long to make money. Especially since they have no other market to fall back on like MS and their other products. And Microsoft still ended up not winning gen 7 anyway.

If Nintendo tries to get ahead in the hardware arms race, they'll kill themselves. More powerful hardware is only needed if it leads to games being brought to the NX. Hardware that is approachable and easy to work with, possibly for cross compatibility with handhelds and mobile devices, would be more attractive and achievable.

I have stopped expecting a console more powerful than the ps4.
We are going to get a console slightly more powerful than the xbox one and even then, we are going to love it.

From what I've seen on forums and all over the internet, most buyers (not nintendo buyers) see Nintendo as a joke, their games are for children, their hardware is not powerful enough and so on.
I think that, even if they go crazy and release something really powerful, people would still complain and say "yeah it's powerful but look, the same mario as always, bla bla bla".
Nintendo needs to go cheap, I see them releasing a 200€ console and 150€ handheld and they'll sell twice as now.

The problem here is most kids end up buying a Playstation or XBox instead. By the time they get to 10-11 years old you lose them because they become obsessed with games like GTA and "being cool". 

I'd say a big chunk of Nintendo's actual fanbase are adults in their late 20s-30s who grew up with the brand in the 80s/90s/early 2000s. I think Nintendo even showed this themselves with the average age range of people buying the recent Pokemon games. And this audience actually has a larger budget that most people think, this is why the 3DS XL (the most expensive model) outsells the cheaper 3DS models and why the Wii U Deluxe model outsold the cheaper Base model. 

It's adults I'd wager that are actually keeping Nintendo going, if it was just kids, they'd be pretty much dead as kids are actually a fairly unreliable market for them.

The other issue with a cheap console is it doesn't make much difference if the PS4/XB1 are already in the "cheap" price range themselves with way more games and features on day 1. It'll be the same thing as the GameCube ... which was dirt cheap for half its life cycle, but the PS2 and XBox were more expensive but close enough that they were also considered relatively "cheap", so given the choice more people saw value in the DVD playback of the PS2 and larger library of games. 

NX needs to be an all-encompassing *platform* IMO, not something tied to just one (or even two) hardware models, one that has hardware for all age ranges and budgets, which then shares all the core Nintendo games between them (portable and home). That's the only way I can see them not getting "Dreamcast-ed" next-gen. 

This is bold, but the time calls for bold thinking. Just like the Wiimote in some ways destroyed the concept of the "traditional" game pad, I think NX needs to destroy what it means to be a traditional hardware platform.

When u say more than 2 hardware models, how many are u thinking? Something like 3-4 or even grander like 5+? And how realistic is it to believe that Nintendo can make games that scale across 5+ different hardware models? How will the budget friendly $100, Vita-level handheld be able to play the same Nintendo games as the $400, PS5-level console?

I know u said in another thread that Nintendo could allow 3rd parties to release games on whatever hardware they see fit. But let's say Nintendo has 5 different models, a $100 Vita-level handheld, a $200 Wii U-level handheld, a $300 PS4-level gaming tablet, a $200 PS4-level console, and a $400 PS5-level console. So AAA 3rd party games will probably only be able to run on the $200/400 consoles and the $300 tablet which 3/5 of the hardware models so not too bad but what happens 2-3 years after PS5/XB4 release and PS4/XB1 stop getting support, won't the PS4-level console & tablet support likely dry up with PS4/XB1, leaving just the PS5-level console which will most likely make up less than 20% of Nintendo's total hardware sales, what if the $100-200 handhelds make up like 75% of their hardware sales and the 2 consoles skus and the tablet only make up 25%, I just don't see how they can support so many different models without splintering the user base to a point where 3rd parties drop support or just make games for the lowest denominator.

If they are going to go with a unified setup where games are playable on multiple pieces of hardware than they need to have like 99% of games available on all skus, the rare exclusive here and there could work but u can't have a scenario where certain skus get no support because it's not compatible with a majority of games or the only piece of hardware that can run high-end 3rd party titles has like 10% of hardware sales making it worthless to them.

It needs to be as simplified for consumers and developers as possible, start out with 1 handheld and 1 console that is maybe 2x as powerful that share 99% of games where games on the console are displayed at a higher resolution, possibly higher frames per second with some anti-aliasing. A couple years later when it's feasible, perhaps they can release a gaming tablet that has equel power to the console variant but that's still just 2 different levels of power which is manageable.

No more NX threads please lol!! It's been done a miliion times before.