I think you've missed my point which is that what happened 20 to 30 years ago is irrelevant today so your bringing up what happened during the NES/SNES days is irrelevant:

What IS more relevant is that the Switch is a different beast compared to the ps4 and xbox 1 meaning porting games to the Switch might end up being too costly to be worth the trouble.

What is also relevant is whether third party games will sell on Nintendo's platform. If sales are good and profits are made, no one will care about Nintendo's restrictive policies 25 years ago.

Its not irrelevant. Nintendo has shown time and again that 3rd party and Nintendo don't mix. Even as recently as Wii U there were reports of 3rd party devs having hard times trying to port their games to Wii U and Nintendo doing little to nothing to help. I really doubt that Nintendo is all of a sudden listening to 3rd party devs and are actively helping them.

And the relevance of whether or not 3rd party games sell on Switch isn't as big a factor as the fact that Nintendo is still Nintendo. People will still care if Nintendo pulls their usual crap and keep Region Locking. Censored versions of their games vs other regions that are uncensored. Same with weird releases like the Donkey Kong games being available in EU but not US. Nintendo still does stufff like this.

Sorry, I mixed your and bunchanumbers posts up.

Fixing...

Whatever the case, I was responding to your and bunchanumbers's posts, not the thread.

We shall see with the Switch two months from now. My current understanding is the Switch will support Unreal Engine 4, a very popular engine. I'm not terribly familiar with game development but I think this is a good first step.

No I think whether third party offerings end up profitable on Nintendo's platform is very likely the biggest factor that goes into whether or not third parties release their software on Nintendo hardware.

$$$ makes the world go round.

Could be? Naw it definitely is a reason, shoulda included it in my initial post. It's why for the rare multiplatform games that were also on Wii, I got the PS3 versions, examples include Force Unleashed, Sonic Unleashed, Rayman Origins, etc. If Sonic 2017 on Switch is significantly inferior to the PS4 version then I wont be getting the Nintendo version of that game either.

Tough to call my way of thinking one dimensional when they have shown the same patterns time and again for decades. As for those games, Yooka Laylee isn't happening anymore on Wii U. As for the indies, Nintendo has shown a willingness to work with them over AAA 3rd party devs. More than likely its because they don't have the demands that the big pubs like EA and Activision have and their games are more likely to work on their limited hardware. 

And can you really say that games sell on 3DS if you are not Nintendo? Take away Monster Hunter and Yokai Watch the highest selling game in 3DS history not from Nintendo is Kingdom Hearts 3D which sold 1.5m units out of a 65m user base. Can you call that a success? The reason why 3DS is supported is because you can make your games cheap and you got a solid shot of breaking even thanks to the size of the user base. But even that isn't likely

If you're not Nintendo, Yokai Watch, or Monster Hunter, you most likely are not on the million seller list. Sonic Generations, Lego Star Wars, Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, Street Fighter 4, DQ7, Bravely Default, and Puzzles and Dragons.

I don't really think you can call that heavily supported that only these games that are not named Monster Hunter or Yokai Watch are million sellers out of a user base of 65 million.

Choosing cartridges for the N64 did it.

If Nintendo could back in time and redo anything they would likely back to 1992-1995 and totally change that decision, the game industry would be very different.

Even after the break with Sony, they have multiple chances to still put a CD-drive into the N64 (they still had a deal with Philips for CD drives), which IMO would've won them that generation.

How can you blame consumers for something not selling well? This boils down to supply and demand. If publishers release an attractive product consumers will flock to it.

Basically you have two entities here fighting for control and independence. Nintendo wants total control over its platform to support its games and partners best, and to maximize profit. Third parties want hardware to support their games best, and don't give a shit about Nintendo's bottom line. Nintendo's ecosystem is far more hostile to "AAA" third parties, then, because Nintendo would rather invest in modest tech and sees little utility in submitting to the demands of Activision, EA, Bethesda, etc. Even if Nintendo wanted to play that game, Sony and Microsoft could outspend and outmaneuver them. Those manufacturers have spent the last 15-20 years demonstrating their willingness to conform to third party expectations because, frankly, they need third party support to survive.

So it boils down to this: it's either Nintendo's fault for being inflexible or it's third parties' fault because of expensive demands. It's certainly not the consumers' fault.

^ This 100%

I remember seeing TV ads for Assasin's Creed: Black Flag never having the Wii U logo included with the other platforms, actually looking back I don't think any 3rd party games even promoted the fact is was on a console besides X360/PS3 and XBO/PS4. Also having 3rd parties sell gimped ports at full price wasn't a helpful move, I 'm not a fan of DLC but Black Ops 2 on Wii U doesn't even have the option to purchase DLC maps, hell, the FREE Nuketown 2025 map wasn't given to us until 2014!

Nintendo third party strife began with the N64 and third parties having a less tyrannical alternative. Some parties, such as Rockstar, still carry a heavy grudge. Nintendo going with an incredibly expensive and outdated medium also hurt third parties.