true but you have been a pretty big advocate for Nintendo needing to embrace modern gaming trends and thats something all 3 of those games did.

True, and I do acknowledge them as positive steps forward, especially Splatoon and XCX.

I know I can seem very harsh on Nintendo at times, but its only cos I want to see them succeed.

I would say Smash Bros. Wii U is boundary-shattering. Maybe not in the way you think, but my god, will people remember anticipating this game because of the character reveals alone. I mean, look at the roster and tell me that you could see something like this ever again? Having a roster that includes the old and new generations of Nintendo, 3rd party all-stars we thought would NEVER happen like Ryu, Cloud, Mega Man, and Bayonetta, and even getting us, consumers (or 1.8 million of them) a chance to vote for a character we wished for. Fans have reacted, discussed, analyzed, and speculated on these character reveals and what could happen next. Whether you're a fan of the series or not, this is something not to dismiss because, besides Project X Zone, this game is the closest thing to a true celebration of video games (Marvel vs. Capcom is more half-comic book/half-video game). This helps when the gameplay is a mix of Melee and Brawl, the roster being the most balanced out of all the official Smash games, the incredibile voice cast and composers that are involved in this project, the music (though Square dropped the ball with giving Nintendo only two FFVII songs), the trophies, the trivia, etc.

And we cannot forget Xenoblade Chronicles X for taking the original's concept and expanding it further with a huge world that even beats some triple A games that released prior to. Sure, its flawed, but its tough to ignore its incredible world. I've played hours in this game and I haven't even discovered a third of the world yet, even though I thought I discovered a pretty good amount already. Its mesmerizing to the say the least.

Then we got Zelda U, which could be the game you guys have been hoping, as a Zelda game and as a boundary-shattering game as well. This is Nintendo's first true attempt at open world Zelda, a call back to its roots to the game that started it all. Aonuma has hoped to do something different than just redo the conventions of Zelda's tried and true formula. At this point, we don't really know what it could do since we've seen so little of it. Hopefully, it will be able to be what it wants to be, a game that fulfills fan expectations.

I don't know, to me they are as big as ever. Zelda is selling about the same it always did. Mario always depends the most on the size of the userbase, but some of the titles are selling incredibly well despite the small Wii U userbase (like Mario Kart 8). I mean, Nintendo is still pulling 10m+ sellers basically every year, so I don't think they are in a bad shape regarding software. They just need to make sure to sell more hardware next gen... then software numbers will obviously rise.

They need to look for the ambition that left the company after the Wii U release.

Hopefully it'll be more manageable for Nintendo, especially when it comes to shows and movies. I'm not sure if they want to go back to the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, the Mario Bros. movie, or Captain N. I would love to see something like what Kirby Right Back at Ya and F-Zero established, though with someone like Funimation dubbing the show instead of 4Kids (even though I love them to death because they made shows that were my childhood, but damn the dubbing is kinda painful at times looking back).

As for this era, despite the criticisms to Nintendo, in both business-wise, hardware-wise, and even software-wise, they've accomplished a pretty good amount of things in this ever changing landscape. Despite mobile taking over, the 3DS has a respectable amount of sales and is home to some of the best games of this generation, even of all-time. Kid Icarus is back after so many years, Fire Emblem rised from the ashes to become a sort of B-tier franchise after being close to ending,  the Wii U (albeit forced to due to lack of third-parties) had Nintendo's back for most of its life, which is something the Vita can't say (though people will still look back that even the Vita sold better than Wii U despite Sony's lackluster support after launch), the return of Star Fox, Splatoon emerging as a potential franchise starter for the future, and then the great games like Xenoblade Chronicles X, Bayonetta 2, Smash Bros., Mario Kart 8, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Mario 3D World, Mario Maker, Pokken, Gen VI Pokemon, and, hopefully, Zelda U and Pokemon Sun and Moon. Then you got experiments like Wonderful 101, Codename Steam, Nintendo Land, etc.

4Kids dubs are really painful, yeah lol. I think Nintendo has some franchises which adapts well to the anime format. Fire Emblem or even Zelda could adapt very well. There's already a FE anime and I think it's really cool.

And, yeah, I think this era was good software-wise and Nintendo consoles have a really strong exclusive output. But they played safed with their franchises. And while I think SM3DW is one of the best Marios ever, it's undeniable that it lacks ambition like Galaxy had. I think games like Splatoon prove that they're adapting to modern gaming, and keeping that Nintendo magic. But I think the lack of ambition affected the sales, which were not pretty good this gen. At least not by Nintendo standards. I want them to be sucessful, because it's the company I care the most, and to be sucessful, they have to take several steps forward.

Better marketing that targets more than just the family demographic. The thing that ultimately helps anything sell more.

Can we talk about something else now?