Why do folks insist on perpetuating the falsehood that Nintendo needs "AAA" Western third-party content to succeed? The last two Nintendo systems that catered to third parties and the so-called "hardcore" crowd are the two worst-selling (ignoring the Virtual Boy). Meanwhile, GBA, DS, Wii, and 3DS sold very well.

Who exactly is out there saying "hmm, I don't like Nintendo's games enough to buy its hardware, but I'm willing to invest if it gets all the third party games already available elsewhere"?

I get it. Third parties are important to YOU. They carry prestige. You can't imagine there are folks out there who just want a cheap console to play Super Mario and don't care at all about Dragon Age and The Witcher. Well, they're out there.

Didn't the Wii U have an awesome Mario game?  Is Fire Emblem really going to increase sales to a meaningful degree?

I don't think it needs "AAA" Western third-party content to succeed.  What are we talking about in this thread, though?  The OP didn't really make that clear.  If we're talking about hardware sales than I think it's absolutely valid to discuss the scope of that potential and, just as important, how much it can grow the consumer base. 

Because, let's be honest, Nintendo really, really needs to bring in consumers who are new to the brand.  It's not like Nintendo isn't aware of this or haven't said as much themselves, either.  Kimishima talked about increasing IP exposure at length.

We agree on that. Nintendo needs to draw in more than just Nintendo diehards like me.

But making concessions to Take Two and Activision and EA isn't the way to do that. Stealing customers from Sony and Microsoft is a losing strategy. Instead Nintendo should position itself as a secondary option for the "hardcore" and an impulse buy -- for lack of a better term -- for those lapsed or fair-weather consumers out there.

It did have, but Wii U problem were way beyond of just software related problems.Even if it had the best Mario, best Pokemon, best Zelda and so on, the console wouldnt have fared that much better.

But yeah, Mario games does sell, just like Pokemon games.Fire emblem is on the rise, with Fates possibly reaching 4 million units sold.Not only that, but the most important factor to consider is the mobile games of these same franchises, that can revitalize/bump the franchise brand awareness to new heights, making them enough to make someone buy a Switch for it.

Im not saying that one games alone will sell the system.Hell, even if we had the Pokemon game we always wanted(an open world pokemon MMO style of game) wouldnt be enough by itself if that was all the Switch had to offfer.It is a combined effort to sell a system.Or if you prefer, a system is always sold on a promise, a promise of great games comming to it.And Mario and Fire Emblem certainly fits those categories.

I've been right even more times. About My Nintendo, about Miitomo, about the intended release period before it was obviously delayed, and the Eurogamers leak that broke the Switch news mentioned that it was intended to be digital only until Nintendo got cold feet.

I'd love to be dead wrong about this and see the Switch succeed, but even at $250 I don't see that happening. Wii was $250, had Wii Sports, and eventually soured Nintendo's brand anyway. Switch is going to have premium-priced games, and won't be able to capitalize on it's gimmick because of crippling space constraints. This isn't the GBA, the DS, or the 3DS. It's a portable console. It will have home console expectations, where people like it or not. I'm not saying it won't be enjoyable, I'm sure I'll love the thing, but it has enough going against it to now make me sure it won't sell well.

I cannot underscore enough how damning and how telling this 16GB news is if true. 2GB was the recommended cart size standard for 3DS games, and that was because of manufacturing costs and the $40 price standard for the platform. 4GB almost made Capcom price ResiRev (or SF43D I can't remember which) at $50. A difference of 2GB. Carts are expensive. A 16GB standard means that that is the $60 "break even" size for this thing at that price. If that's true, and there is literally no other reason to recommend such an absurdly small size, then that means that the manufacturing costs for bigger carts will force devs to either make their games more expensive than $60, or eat profits to keep their ports at $60. That's a decision they don't have to make on other systems because manufacturing dual layered 32GB discs costs pennies. And maybe some will stomach that loss for games between 16GB and 32GB, but they definitely won't be able to for games that are above 32GB, and that's a real issue when that is pretty much every big mainstream game now. A $250 Switch won't help that. A $200 Switch couldn't even help that.

Who knows. Maybe Nintendo has some insanely revolutionary compression software tool that shrinks collossal 130GB games like Call of Duty: Advanced Warefare to a tenth of their size, so everything will be under 16GB and alright with the Switch. Or maybe reality sucks.

The 3DS offered so much in terms of quality software that I can safely say it is all your fault if you only use it for Pokemon. I will not argue Wii U because that would be redundant. However, if all you got a 3DS for was Pokemon, the problem is you.

If Nintendo is able to convince Japanese developers to keep the same level of support for Switch that they kept for the 3ds, I don´t see a huge problem here.

Yes, not having good support from western developers is a problem but the 3ds has TONS of great exclusive franchises that are widely popular in Japan and appeal to some western audiences too. Sum that with Nintendo franchises -as now both home and portable console gaming divisions are merged into one - and Nintendo partnerships with Platinum / Hudson / Monolith etc. and I see the Switch getting a very good library of games.

Nintendo make games for little kids. "Wario", I hear you cry.

Well, yes.  But what I mean is, even if Nintendo had 3rd party support, why would you buy a Nintendo over any other device if you don't enjoy 1st party Nintendo games?

Nintendo will obtain publishing rights to Half-Life 3 and everything will be fine.