The only reason the games Nintendo makes are of such high quality is because they know the ins and outs of their system. If Botw was released for PS4 it would not be nearly of the quality it is, it wouldn't be in such a small storage space and the optimization would have been subpar. Besides Wii Sports could never come to PS3 or xbox360. The DS and 3ds games would be awful on the PSP or PS vita. Splatoon would have bombed harder than knack without the bundle sales had it been third party. Sure there were swing and misses with games like starfox zero but it was still something that never would have happened on the other consoles. On top of that Nintendo would not have been nearly as rich as they are and they would fall flatter than Sega in that regard. Nintendo's freedom would also be taken away. When you make software for your own hardware you can be experimental and sometimes make gems. A third party being experimental would be a huge risk and a danger to their existence if it flops. The deadlines would have been stricter and the creative workload would be greater resulting in a drop in fun ideas and innovation. Something like splatoon and ARMS would never come about. They would have to make more generic or tried and true versions as well. I imagine nintendogs and iwata's brain training would never be a thing. We wouldn't have the same games is what I am saying and in my opinion they would have been worse than what Nintendo makes right now. The wealth of IP would have decreased drastically as well and we would have a sequel every other year. It would have been a totally different ball game and people like me would not be gaming anymore. Many many many things could go wrong but right now Nintendo is getting its groove back and its so damn stupid to think Nintendo would ruin itself based on one failed system or the crying of some people on the internet. The PS4 and Xbone are basically the same thing and without Nintendo as a hardware maker the market will surely shrink. The switch could be the thing that becomes the next norm. Who knows if the PS6 is a 1080p 20 Tflops tablet with a dock because many things we call norm now are innovations by Nintendo. You forget that without Nintendo the industry could have died and that could happen again. If Nintendo is not there, how will Sony or Microsoft deal with it? The trioka balances itself when one company screws up the other two cover for it in the market. If logically you think about it the most sense of anyone going third party is Microsoft but financially that's stupid. So is Nintendo going third party. Financially Sony is the likely candidate to go third party. I don't know in what angle is Nintendo the no.1 candidate to go third party except in people's dreams

Eye Toy was the first camera from Sony which came out well before the Wii. The PSP and Vita are not consoles, they are portables. They did however add features that Nintendo fans are trying to say were introduced "innovated" by Nintendo. Stating what Sony has done first in relation to other consoles isn’t "praising" them.  I never said I liked the Vita, PS eye, Eye Toy, motion controls etc. The Wii was a gimmick, as was the WiiU, the Eye Toy, PS Eye, Kinect etc. VR is also a gimmick. Gimmicks don’t last and are introduced to gain interest outside of your existing base.  Is the Wii or WiiU controller still in use? Do you really want to carry around a console to play? Isn’t the idea of being portable keeping the footprint small? The PlayStation has had the same general controller design since it was released. They have added motion (which I don’t use) vibration, thumb sticks, extra buttons and a touch pad. The Ecosystem of both PlayStation and MS have pushed gaming forward much more than anything Nintendo has done. I do think you misunderstand innovation vs. implementation. Just because Nintendo does something that someone else has already done doesn’t make them an innovator. Taking an idea and doing it first or changing its initial design improving upon it is innovation. Nintendo did these things in the 90s, not these days. Making a handheld larger and more powerful isn’t innovation, it’s going backwards.

add to this the user base would be much larger. Instead of game sales depending on console sales of their own hardware they would open themselves up to both Microsoft and Sonys user base. While I like Mario, Zelda etc. I will never get to play them again unless they go third party. I wont be wasting money on a Nintendo console that isnt supported a few years after launch.

Came here after reading the title... the OP must be feeling pretty dumb now with these Switch sale numbers =P
Maybe it's time for Microsoft to go back to software... seems way more realistic atm.

LOL. Initial sales are good, they are going down already. Lets see where they are in 3 months.

they are going down already? how did you come this conclusion?

it sold less in week 2 than it did in week 1 so obviously he's right.

Okay I am going to make a point by point response to your comment:

"Eye Toy was the first camera from Sony which came out well before the Wii"

I assumed you were talking about cameras that track a motion controller which is why I talked about the Wii Remote's IR camera in relation to the Playstation Eye. If you are talking about a gesture camera like the Eye Toy, then you are correct that is an example of innovation because Sony took something that existed and adapted it to gaming (in essence they did not change it but found a new purpose for it; which is one type of innovation).

"The PSP and Vita are not consoles, they are portables"

They are still refered to as portable consoles, hence they are consoles. Just as Playstation, Wii, etc. are refered to as home consoles.

"The Wii was a gimmick, as was the WiiU, the Eye Toy, PS Eye, Kinect etc. VR is also a gimmick. Gimmicks don’t last and are introduced to gain interest outside of your existing base"

How can you characterize an entire console (Wii and Wii U) as being a gimmick, particularly since both of them have large libraries with a variety of experiences. By your definition every console is a gimmick because its life cycle is generally 5-10 years hence it fits your characterizing of something that does not last.

" Is the Wii or WiiU controller still in use?"

Wii Remotes have been succeded by the Joy-Cons. Dual screen assymetirc gameplay experiences are still offered through remote play, xbox smartglass, Nvidia Shield's gamestream, and many games on Apple TV also use dual screens between an iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad. Also, the original Xbox, Dualschock 1 and 2 have also been discontinued that does not mean they have not been succeded by something.

"Do you really want to carry around a console to play?"

That is the entire point of portable console. Something that offers close to console like experiences on the go. Also, it is not difficult to see why this idea is attractive, as many people (including myself) are typically on the go and so we do not have the time to play stationary home console, so a portable system is really the best option that we have. Having a portable system that comes close to providing console like experiences on the go is a great boon to us.

"Isn’t the idea of being portable keeping the footprint small?"

You can easily keep the Switch in your pocket and the Joy-Cons in your other pocket. In my experience its foot print is actually smaller than a Vita or (New) 3DS XL (both of which would stick out of my pocket, whereas the Switch does not)

"hey have added motion (which I don’t use) vibration, thumb sticks, extra buttons and a touch pad."

You just contradicted yourself. You said motion controls are gimmicks (and you defined gimmicks as things that do not last long) and yet you just mentioned that the Dualshock 4 has motion controls, which was introduced in console games by SixAxis and Wii Remotes (not to mention has been incorporated into Steam controllers, Wii U Gamepad, Switch Pro Controller, Switch Joy Cons, Dualschock 4 as already mentioned, Vita, 3DS, and countless mobile devices, all of which came after SixAxis and Wii Remote; so by even your own definition motion controls are not a gimmick as they have been implimented in other places and are still used for gaming). 

"The Ecosystem of both PlayStation and MS have pushed gaming forward much more than anything Nintendo has done".

The only area I would agree with you on that is implimentation of online services. However, I would say Nintendo is ahead of both in terms of console interface design (look at the next point where I talk about exactly what areas Nintendo innovated in).

"I do think you misunderstand innovation vs. implementation. Just because Nintendo does something that someone else has already done doesn’t make them an innovator. Taking an idea and doing it first or changing its initial design improving upon it is innovation".

Actually you seem to be confused by the idea of innovation versus invention. Invention is creating something new. Inovation means taking an already existing idea and modifying it and/or using it in different ways. Nintendo and Sony did not invent motion controls, but they were both the first to use for gaming purposes, hence they both innovated. The analog stick was nothing new but was not used for gaming purposes before Nintendo made a smaller implimentation inside the N64. Rumble motors were nothing new, but they were not implimented for home gaming consoles (and their games) before N64. Going back to your previous comment on Nintendo not having contributed anything to gaming, look at your console gamepad (I assume you are a Playstation gamer, so look at the DualShock 4). The basic style and button placement implimentation came from the NES and SNES, the rumble implimentation originated from N64, the analog stick implimentation came from N64 (the dual analog implimentation was innovated on by Sony). Once again I am not saying that Nintendo invented any of those things. However, they innovated on it by taking these things that were not used for gaming and adopting them for games (refer back to the definition of innovation in which you either modify something or repurpose it for something different), MS and Sony could be said to have implimented those things because they did not make changes and used those features in a similar way that Nintendo did.

"Making a handheld larger and more powerful isn’t innovation, it’s going backwards".

How is making something more powerful and larger going backwards? The system still fits in pockets, it is more powerful than before (I am not sure how you think making a system more powerful is going backwards, considering that is how technology progresses; by your definition every system has gone a step backwards because it is more powerful than the system before it) and so it can provide closer to home console like experiences. Also, by giving the Switch a bigger screen you have more realestate to show more details and add more on screen ui elements that would not be possible on smaller screens. Why do you think, smartphones have opting to include bigger screens? Why do you think tablets (which are just larger and more powerful smartphones) have taken off? It is because people like something with more of a screen realestate. In addition, while the concept of making a portable bigger and more powerful is not innovative in and of itself; the idea of having a portable system that provides home console styles of play (like split-screen multiplayer, something not previously available to a system you could carry with you).  On top of that you also have the Joy-Cons which are innovative because they are detachable and can be used in wide variety of ways previous controllers could not be used (yes Nintendo did not invent gaming controllers, but with Joy-Cons they are taking something that existed, modifying it, and using it in different ways).

Except that strategy has never really worked out well. When Sega and Atari went third-party not only did they lose out on a major source of revenue from hardware, but they had spend extra resources on porting because their userbase fragmented across different platforms. Yes they picked up a higher userbase but the additional cost to reach that new userbase has not exactly left them as being success stories (Atari has gone bankrupt, and Sega has restructured several times and abandoned franchises that sold well on a single platform but were no longer viable after fragmentation of the base)

As for not buying a system that will not be supported a few years after launch. That is pretty much the case for any console or any piece of technology. Consoles generally have 5-10 year life cycle. Although the Wii U's life cycle was less then that (around 4 years(. However, The only two systems that Nintendo has not really supported in the usual life cycle have been the Wii U and Virtual Boy, so what you are describing is not a pattern with any of their other systems. In addition, both MS and Sony have had system that they either discontinued or did not provide first-party support for before the usual 5-10 year. In the case of Microsoft, it was the original Xbox which got a shelf-life similar to that of Wii U (around 4 years). In the case of Sony, it has been the Vita which has not recieved a first-party game since 2015 (around 4 years)

While I do agree that it is early days, and launch sales are not necessarly a good benchmark for a how system will do in the long term. I will say that disagree with your assertion that demand is disappearing. Sales have gone down because Nintendo had about 2.5 million units ready for launch and they have gone through that. Hence, the system is currently supply constrained. The PS4's sales also dropped dramatically the week after its launch as well (for the week of 23rd of November, a week after launched, it sold below XOne, 3DS, PS3, X360, Wii U), similar to how Switch has declined due to supply constraints.