Both rumors and a number of Nintendo fans have brought forth the idea of Nintendo fusing their handheld and console library to take some of the load off Nintendo platforms which mainly rely on first party releases.

PS4Neo and Xbox1.5 promise to allow games to be scaled in performance between different hardware. Sony and Micro doing this for consoles and hypothetically Nintendo using it between console and handheld.

With NX to be revealed soon and the possible reveal of new hardware by both Sony and Micro during e3 we may have more information, but:

1) having the likely existence of this improved versions of current hardware from Micro and Sony, does it make the Nintendo Fusion idea more plausible?

2) Is it possible that two of these companies approached this idea as the result of industrial espionage and adpated it for their own interests?

i would say number 1 is correct, if PS4 & XB1 do get upgrades where all games run on older and newer models than it does make a unified Nintendo strategy more feasible.

Number 1 is correct, I think they will help paving the way. Regarding number 2... this kind of espionage sure happens, but I don't think they adapted this idea to their platforms, honestly. I think that's more due to developers/gamers/etc criticizing current gen hardware capabilities alongside with new VR possibilities.

Eh.

I stand by the thoughts that neither the PS4 or XBO were initially built to be upgraded. That was a decision that happened later. They are just clearly not made with that kind of platform in mind, or this would have been obvious from the get go.

I don't know if it really makes it more feasible, the same way remote play doesn't. It's just a feature added in later to a platform that wasn't built to take advantage of it.

Also, come on at no. 2. There's no conspiracy. They saw an opportunity to be forward thinking and they took it. That's all.

And we can also consider the way Sony with the PS4 may have given the impression that visuals do matter.

I find it a little hard to believe though that both Sony and Micro thought of the idea of creating a Console+ though, both out of the blue at the same time.

It's not "out of the blue",
There was and is no new tech compelling enough to disrupt S/MS from the fundamental x86 PC architecture they chose,
so it was predictable the next generation would be trivially backwards compatable, however "branded" (NEO, etc).
The question of timing boils down to what and when AMD can offer in performance/cost, where S/MS are in the same boat.
Both systems were never sold at loss, and bw-compatability means no disruption of platform, so it comes down to AMD.

I think there is less connection between S/MS and NX than you think.
NX would have launched independent of S/MS upgrading just because WiiU is stalling and N is worried about mobiles.
If anything the correlation is simply down to APU/Fabs providing the same performance/price benefit impetus.
NX is not about cross-gen compatability like NEO, it is about cross-segment compatability, more like iPhone/iPad.
Nintendo needed to go there because it's console segment is extremely underperforming,
and it's handheld segment is facing a tidal wave of competition from mobile, even if doing better vs. console side...
Merging the two platforms means they mutually reinforce each other for a stronger overall platform/ecosystem,
which doubly helps when launching a non-trivially BW compatable platform from scratch with no install base.

( assuming NX rumors are true, of course )

Common with that conspiracy crap.

This is just Sony & Microsoft looking at the Smart phone industry & PC industry and applying it to consoles.