It started with Nintendo.

They choose not to use CDs, back when disc space was a issue.

As time went on, and it just became normal that nintendo systems lacked 3rd party, most users adopted a "screw them" mentality, and just support nintendo games. Often a 2nd to own console, where you dont buy 3rd party on it.

Now its no longer Nintendo at fault, its the conditioned consumers too.

The only way out of the hole, would be to do a traditional console, like a PS4 that was on the same level as the then current PS/XB, and not be released 4years or so after them.

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.

No, it doesn't mean that. Free market means that it is on companies to provide products that people are interested in buying. If companies are unwilling to do that, then it's their own fault if their products don't sell.

Free market is what shaped the game output of third parties. What you see today is merely the result of a split that dates back over 25 years. Nintendo games have always been tough competition, so a competing console manufacturer (Sega being the first one, in case it isn't clear) would highlight something different in tone to Nintendo games as something that is very desirable, even if that was first and foremost a marketing strategy (Sonic being more grown-up than Mario has always been an illusion). That in turn is attractive for third party publishers because it takes Nintendo out of the equation for the most part. Over the course of several generations third parties have tailored their games more and more towards the counter-culture of Nintendo. (I call it counter-culture because Sega rose to fame by making it a point that they aren't Nintendo.)

If third parties then simply port over the same games to an audience that is not counter-culture, there can't be a reasonable expectation that said audience will consider these games as good as the counter-culture audience does. Traits that are considered positives by the counter-culture (M-rating in and of itself, for example), leave people who buy Nintendo systems cold because they don't assign a higher value to games based on age rating alone. This means that an M-rated game has to offer the same level of substance that is expected from popular Nintendo games. What EA, Ubisoft etc. put out usually falls flat with mediocre gameplay systems and inconsequential collectibles that are put in to create an illusion of content value.

What is generally ignored in these third party/Nintendo/Nintendo system owners discussions are Nintendo handhelds, but it's something that absolutely should be taken into account. When you apply the above reasoning to Nintendo handhelds, you won't be able to get around the conclusion that third parties treat Nintendo home consoles and handhelds differently. The third party game output on Nintendo handhelds doesn't try to bank on superficial features like excessive violence or tits (the latter being prevalent on Sony handhelds), rather it accounts more for things that owners of Nintendo handhelds already value. A standard genre like JRPGs has no trouble selling. Third parties are doing pretty well overall, but that doesn't come down to Nintendo system owners suddenly having a different attitude, it comes down to third parties obeying to the rules of a free market: If you want to sell products, you need to be willing to compete. You can't pretend that competition doesn't exist and that your products should sell for the simple reason that they were made available. It doesn't work that way.

M-rating is not a value in and of itself to gamers, they simply want adult themes and stories and more "realistic" and gritty presentation. To put it bluntly, unicorns shooting rainbows just doesn't appeal to them. I wish you would appreciate that fact instead of making value judgments based on your own preferences. I enjoy Game Of Thrones more than I do Dragonball Z, if you can see what I'm getting at.

Ninty fans always talk about gameplay and how it's the most important aspect, but every game out there has gameplay. Sure, different games and genres have different gameplay and there's good GP and crappy GP in every genre (duh) but that only goes to highlight the fact that it's impossible to make direct comparisons between them. It's apples and oranges. People want different things. One could say that Tetris has great gameplay, it's simple, it's smooth, it's addictive, but in the end, Tetris will just be Tetris, no matter how polished.

You talk about substance, as if only Nintendo games have that. What is substance to you? To me, the most popular Nintendo games are the very antithesis of substance. No story worth mentioning, no moral decisions, no difficult themes, just light-hearted fun and pick-up-and-go distraction. Platforming. Fluffy stuff. I agree with you, though, that collectibles of all kind are just a cheap way of lenghtening a game and offer no substance to speak of.

How do you measure content and value? Some measure the time it takes to finish a game, but what about things like MMO games that don't really have an end, they just go on in an infinite loop? I think the best measure is to look at what the game offers with respect to what you are looking for.

What I'm really trying to say is that I wish we could have these discussions without feeling the need to take potshots at each other, regardless of the platforms we have chosen. But then again, would any of this be any fun, if it was all about the facts and there was no emotion or speculation..