And here's the reason why I prefer any Nintendo Console to any Playstation or Xbox right now. Shooters/Sports/Action/Racing Sims/WRPG just ain't my thing. RPGs tend to get way too actionyzed for my taste nowadays; Sports and Racing sims bore me to death, as do action games (especially open world ones). I love how Nintendo does work against those trends, and if they do catch on one of these trends, they give it their own spin. Splatoon was the very first shooter I loved since Serious Sam back in 2001. I don't like racing sims, but could play any Mario Kart or F-Zero for hours (and pretty much any non Nintendo Funracers too - there are just not too many left these days). I loved Mario Strikers Charged, but Fifa 98 WTRC was my very last Fifa (and never any PES) I bought.

As for the last paragraph, tastes change all the time. Maybe in 5 years the market had been so oversaturated with action games and shooters that no one is going to buy them, maybe a whole new genre takes over, maybe an old one gets a big revival, who knows. The point is that the games you mentioned might not be doing much right now, but it's impossible to tell how the situation will be in the future.

Of course they could. Nintendo could survive on Pokemon alone going to mobile and other consoles or even PC devices. Nintendo at this point have two things that both Atari and SEGA didn't at the time of their exit from the home console industry... relevancy and a ton of cash on hand. Atari hadn't been relevant in well over a decade when they left the industry, and SEGA had been on the decline for several years and only Sonic was really relevant at the time of their demise, and both were pretty much bankrupt when they left the industry.

Nintendo's franchises and global recognition is strong enough that they could survive and even thrive as a 3rd party only company, plus their cash reserves would ensure their future for some time to come.

Can't be much worse than the overall quality of their Wii U library... there's been some duds in between Mario U/3D World, Smash, Mario Kart and Splatoon... like Nintendo World, MP 10, Kirby, Yoshi and Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, to name a few.  No reason to think them going 3rd party would be any different in terms of quality, with a range of software from the core AAA Mario and Zelda games to the mediocre spinoffs.

If anything, going 3rd party would light a fire under Nintendo's ass, because now they'd be forced to make themselves stand out among a sea of competition instead of having a software monopoly on their own console like they're used to.  Imagine if the next Zelda had to compete with the next Fallout / GTA / COD / Uncharted, etc. when it releases, instead of nothing at all.

Splatoon might have been cheap to produce, but it still is more ambitious than other new IPs Nintendo has made over the years, like Pushmo for example.

You are correct that Nintendo has released some duds, Ultra Smash & Amiibo Festival certainly fall in that category but some of the titles you listed dont, Rainbow Curse, Woolly World & Nintendo Land, while not the greatest games ever, arent duds. Those 3 titles all have scores in the mid-high 70s. Not great but certainly not duds.

Nintendo software had no problem selling on NES & SNES which both had great 3rd party support so i dont think added competition would really affect them.

Please don't use the word fact like that. It's been abused enough already. If your statement was correct, not a single person would have bought Journey, for example or Minecraft. And we all know how well the latter has done. Also, we all know that generalizations are bad and people who make them should feel bad.

The 10 or so million people that bought a Wii U to specifically play the niche Nintendo games are going to follow Nintendo to whatever platform they release their next games on, whether it's on their own console or a platform from another manufacturer. They are the hardcore Nintendo fans who will always be there to play those games, and if they are willing to buy a Nintendo console just for Nintendo games and no other support, they will more than likely be willing to buy a console that has both Nintendo games and all the 3rd party support. In other words Nintendo would retain most of their sales for the niche games from their dedicated audience coming with them to the new platform, but also gain extra sales from an audience that probably never played these games because they didn't want to buy a new console for them, even if these people fall into the minority "20%" that buy games other than action/shooters on PS4/Xbone/PC.

Yes, i know that Nintendo fans will still buy these games but the point is if Nintendo software sales dont have a large increase from becoming 3rd party than there is no reason for them to become 3rd party.

Pikmin 3 has sold about 1 million, ya a Pikmin 4 might sell 1.5 million on PS+XB, is that really worth it when u take into consideration that Nintendo no longer recieves royalties in addition to paying royalties?

Will Nintendo even bother making games outside of their proven big hitters now that they dont need to support their own platform?

Will they continue to fund 3rd party games like Fatal Frame, Bayonetta or Wonderful 101?

Will they still outsource their IP to smaller studios like Good-Feel, Next Level, Alpha Dream, Genius Sonority, Arika, Monster Games?

Nintendo wont need to publish 20 or so games per year now that they dont need to push hardware so is their software output going to be cut drastically? How does that benefit Nintendo fans who like their smaller, more niche franchises & spinoffs?

They could, but they would probably not be making some games that don't sell very well like Pikmin and Metroid. In order for a game to be successful as a third party, they need to sell more units than they would as a first party to be successful. It's why the Tomb Raider was considered a flop to Square Enix even though it sold over 3 million units.

Not only would they but they should. No one except die-hard Nintendo fans want to play Nintendo games on Nintendo hardware.

The hardware is a tax on gamers.