Examples please? 

Its not a matter of being vindictive. Its a matter of control and Nintendo always wants to be in control. Trying to keep 3rd party devs was just one of the things. They did the same thing to consumers with different console designs and region locking.

Nintendo had to have it their way which included keeping with carts on N64, Mini DVD on Gamecube, then vastly underpowered hardware for Wii and Wii U. If you are 3rd party you have to jump through their hoops to get your game on their system. You have to work with their limitations.

Even to this day with Switch. You want your game on it? You have to work within their mobile hardware. The only concession that might happen is no more region locking and even that isn't a guarantee yet. Everything else is on Nintendo's terms and only on Nintendo's terms. This is why they are losing to MS and Sony.

As for the fans, they are now conditioned to be Nintendo only on their console because Nintendo games are the only thing to be guaranteed on the device. Even that is a iffy proposition with Wii U droughts.

My take:

Most gamers don't have the disposable income to buy every game that comes out. Maybe a game every couple of months, if they're lucky.

Nintendo games tend to be events. On Nintendo consoles, you can buy nothing but Nintendo games for a year and be content. Especially since they are apparently geared towards a younger audience. So games like Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed that do well on other consoles suffer on Nintendo consoles.

Plus, since the Wii, Nintendo hardware hasn't been the most powerful. It takes more than just a sharp image to sell on Nintendo consoles.

This, too.

It happened somewhere between 1995 and 1996.

I remember it because when I first read that Project: Reality was going to be cartridge-only, I remember I nearly dropped the magazine I was reading because I was stunned.

This back before I even had internet, and even then I knew that was a huge, huge, huge, huge mistake.

From there it's never recovered or been the same.

The NES and SNES had no problem selling third party content though, many of the best selling games were third party titles whether it was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Contra and Final Fantasy on the NES or Street Fighter II, NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat 2, or Final Fantasy VI on the SNES.

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I believe there is a lot of disingenuity in this topic. The fans can't be completely honest. Not all of them. There is emotions like anger and jealousy.

In my opinion, this question is no different than "Why do some games sell better on some consoles and not others?" and the answer is the same: Because some consoles have audiences who buy those games and not others.

If you didn't buy it and you are the audience that should have done so; then it's either you were mad/jealous, or the game didn't look very fun, or you own it on a different system for what ever reason.

Also, just to point out, people have budgets. Nintendo releases a game per month soooo... between WatchDogs and Mario 3DWorld..... yeee.

Another reason could be that the hardware on the Nintendo system is so weak that the version of the game on the Nintendo system is subpar like Watchdogs and Darksiders 2.

Back when Nintendo had a stranglehold on the industry, they put in place a bunch of anti-competitive policies in order to keep a monopoly in North America. Basically, third-parties got shafted all the way around.

Nintendo made developers agree to exclusivity just to have a game on a Nintendo system. I don't mean just exclusive games, I mean Nintendo demanded that developers release nothing at all on rival systems for a certain window. They made studios pay them to manufacture the cartridges but controlled production amounts, which ended up with third-party games always being under-shipped and sold-out during key retail periods. They demanded that developers make a working game first, without any agreement, then they would decided if they'd allow it on the system based on their own rules--for example, they might decide your game was too much like something they were releasing, which means you were screwed over something you might have gone into debt to make.

I remember one of the guys from EA saying they'd decided to become a PC developer rather than play by Nintendo's rules. Sega tried Nintendo's approach before opening things up for third-parties and then Playstation came and blew the doors off Nintendo's monopoly. Third-parties jumped ship because of practical reasons, like the CD format, but they weren't exactly sad about the turn of events.

What does that have to do with anything now? Business is business, after all. Executives don't stay at the top by holding grudges above profit margins.

In short, Nintendo created a situation where the third-party environment moved on to somewhere else. Their policies and hardware mistakes resulted in a divided market. I'm sure they thought that just being Nintendo would be enough to crush the competition and the third-parties would crawl back meekly but, obviously, that didn't happen. Moreover, the longer that didn't happen, the more the market fragmented.

At present, in my opinion, publishers are just fine with keeping things the way they are. Instead of releasing on four platforms, with the related increase in marketing, production, and distribution costs, they can release on three platforms with pretty much the same number of sales. There really is no reason for them to try all that hard to expand their existing framework unless it develops on its own.

If the Switch is a big success that steals away consumers from Xbox/Playstation/PC then third-parties will be there. If not, they're fine with ignoring Nintendo, too.

So, ultimately, Nintendo bears the most responsibility for the current situation with third-party developers and publishers.

It's my fault.

Sorry.

Yes but those are two examples that, unfortunately, should be reasons to buy it on Nintendo systems. I say this because the touch screen features on those two games were pretty astounding, at least in my opinion.

But the weak hardware is certainly a reason for less ports which makes for an audience that only buys Nintendo.