I don't really see the problem here. For once a Nintendo console doesn't have a stupid gimmick that devs have to cater to.
The smartphone is a universal concept accepted by every consumer, only that this one can also be plugged into a bigger screen without effort.

N64 couldnt, GC didnt. Wii didnt to a certain extent. Pass failures have shown that they cant. If they could they would

this! people really need to divorce themselves from this idea that people started gaming with Nintendo. They didnt, we're old there are people in their early 20s that grew up playing PS.

Like me, I grew up with Playstation 1 since I was 6 until I was 12, and then I got a Ps2. Most people in Europe that were gamer kids on the 90 and early 00 grew up with PS, not Nintendo consoles. There's quite a nostalgia for the brand too, I can see it in a lot of my friends, people thinks it only happens to Ninty.

I will definitely say that thinking you can hold out in announcing your consoles power, and multiplats and release titles to the last second is a huge mistake, with the titles waiting until the last second to reveal being a bigger mistake than what they did with Wii U.

No because games like Monster Hunter, Bravery, Pokemon, Smash Bros. and other titles sold very well and there is little doubt those are home console experiences on the go. There are many reasons the PSVita did not sell well and with so many variables, it is next to impossible to say what the market for the console was or demanded. PSP sole extremely well and it was bringing the home console experience to the hand held space. There is no way to answer your question with certainty.

I do believe there is a market for the home console experience on the go. Nintendo's main problem is that their market demographic do not like mature titles as much. Resident Evil did not do well on DS because the market for those types of games on Nintendo platforms is miniscule. However, Mario titles that rival the home console in quality and content still sell extremely well. Let's not forget that one of the saving graces of 3DS was a remake of a home console title (Legeng of Zelda).

... aren't Monster Hunter and Pokemon known as being portable games? I know Monster Hunter also exists on home consoles, but hasn't it always seen the bulk of its success in portables? I could be wrong there.

I just see less and less and less people buying handheld consoles especially compared to 10 years ago. Just think, the PSP had movies on UMDs because playing videos on the go was not something that most people could easily do at that time. Can you imagine buying movies on NS cartridges to play movies on the go today? If you go back to the DS and PSP, those two devices were really the only way to get a quality gaming experience on the go at the time, but that isn't the case today. Portable technology has come such a long way in the past decade it's not even funny. Millions children now have their own iPhones. That means they already have a portable game and movie device that most parents didn't have for their kids 10 years ago. Where is the incentive for those parents to buy the Nintendo Switch to do more of the same, at a much higher price? I really think that ship has sailed, and it's silly to try to recapture it without tapping into the phone market itself.

Let me throw this at you. What more sounds like a license to print money in 2016? A hybrid console that will cost between $250-400, that's too big to fit in a pocket, that has removable, losable parts, and requires $40-$60 games, or a super protective iPhone/Android phone case with a built in game controller that essentially converts any smart phone into a single screen DS complete with clamshell design for $100. It has 100% compatibility with all iPhone/Android store with the New Nintendo Seal of Quality (searchable tag on the store), with games that cost anywhere between $0-$20. Which sounds like a better play for Nintendo at this point if that is their target market?

Have you ever played Monster Hunter? Aside from the first Monster Hunter being a Playstation 2 title, the reason it is saw massive success is because it was a PS2 game (down to the online) on the go. The only way a home console version of Monster Hunter is superior is graphically (and even that is marginal when the 3DS and Wii U version could be played together) but as far as the content and game play is concerned, Monster Hunter, Pokemon, Bravery, Smash and other rpgs especially, are home console experiences on the go.

While a game like Pokemon is primarily or exclusively on a hand held line, that does not mean the content is somehow less than what it could be on a home console. If Pokemon was released on Wii U with a graphical upgrade but the content stayed the same, people would still adore it because the game play and content are not compromised to fit the hand held. And by the way, have people not been demanding a mainline Pokemon home console title since like 2000? There is a reason for that. Home consoles and hand held consoles are reaching a point of parity.

It is fine to see fewer people buying hand helds and try to give your rationale for it. Like I said, console sales are down for home and hand held consoles this generation (especially from last generation where Wii to Wii U is a catastrophe, and PS4 + Xbox One sales will not reach PS3 + Xbox 360 sales... which is pitiful considering this means no gamers were retained from the enormous contribution of Wii). I do not try to get at semantics like this because we have seen consoles like Wii and DS go crazy with sales despite classic convention telling us they should not be nearly as successful as they were.

By the way, this hybrid fits in my pocket but I am going to go along with you here. I believe your analogy is apt. I do not attempt to dethrone it. However, while your points makes absolute sense, people do not always fit into a box of logic that tightly. People buy what they like and/or desire. I could say, "its just a beanie baby" or, "it is just an iphone 6" to one person but that person may be willing to pay a grand for it. Now, I am not saying this is what will happen for this product but it could happen. And if it does happen, it will most likely be because the product is desired heavily and not percieved value. Now, it is Nintendo's job to make this product desirable and I am certain they will give it a shot, but the truth is, there is nothing wrong with this effort. To this day, we use an energy source and style that is more expensive and wasteful than alternative menthods and yet, they still prevail. I am not saying Nintendo will meet success and I am not saying that this thing will be the next Wii or DS. I am saying I want one and I can understand why, despite the cost, other people may want it as well. I do not want it as much as I want a real hybrid, but I do want this console. And the main reason why is because my girlfriend (a nongamer to the freaking core... not even phone games), expressed how cool she thinks this console is. She even went as far as to share a video about it on her facebook (and if you saw the reactions to her share... it was mostly people saying, "since when do you like video games?") is all in on getting one should the price stay under $300 USD.

By the way, I am unsure of the market Nintendo is after. Based on this product, I am not confident they want the mobile gaming market, I am not feeling like they want the tech or hardcore gaming market, I am not sure they want the casual market either. I am legitimately confused by where they are going with this product which has left me with the wild guess that Nintendo is literally trying to build (or rebuild) an entirely new market. I just do not know.

I disagree that they can't compete with Sony and M$ on equal footing if they wanted to.  The N64 was on paper the most powerful console of its generation, but lost to Sony because Nintendo decided to stick with carts over CDs, which led to the mass exodus of 3rd party developers.  The GC was a well-engineered console that was more powerful than the PS2 and on par with the Xbox, but Nintendo's poor marketing decision to once again refuse to go with the popular storage medium of the day (standard DVDs w/ movie playback capability) and designing the console to look like a Fisher Price toy caused its downfall.  Despite that, the GC actually had fairly decent 3rd party support when all was said and done.  The Wii and Wii U were both a generation behind in the hardware department, and the only reason the Wii sold as well as it did was its cheap price compared to the 360 and PS3, and Wii Sports being packed in from day 1.

If Nintendo really wanted to this gen, they could have partnered up with AMD or Nvidia and other tech companies to develop a standard home console that is at minimum on par with the PS4 in terms of graphical capabilities, and they could have also used game cards as a storage medium like they are doing with the Switch, rather than Blu-Ray or similar discs so that they wouldn't have to include an expensive internal HDD and optical drive, which would cut down on manufacturing costs and allow them to release said console at a competitive price of $299 right out of the gate.  Then later on they could release a $200 handheld or hybrid type console if they so desired to fully replace the 3DS and complement their home console.

Nintendo simply prefers to do things their own way however, for better or worse.

Lol, this post is hilarious. I like how you compare Sony's gaming division's profit to Apple's profit + Nintendo's profit + Niantic's profit + Google's profit + TPC's profit from Pokemon Go. Even then I'm not sure the game will ever reach Sony's gaming division's $785M profit from last FY.

For info:

Pokemon Go has had a revenue of $600M in 90 days. Obviously most of that was during it's peak at it only generated $100M in the past 30 days compared to $500M in its first 60 days. And that's declining steeply.