Why? I see no reasons for Nintendo to go third party: a Third party company is a company that make games, and Nintendo just stopped quite time ago to make games, they only do hardware (new switch colors, amiibo) and full priced Wii U remastereds. So, there is no reason for them to go third party, since they are no longer a software company, they are more like Bluepoint Studio. Paper Mario is the second and last new Nintendo first party game for this year, for a platform (the Switch) that is doubling PS4 sales since at least a year. This is really absurd in my opinion.

Also, it takes long enough for Nintendo to make games to Switch standards, if they were having to make games at PS4/PS5 levels of fidelity we'd be getting a Zelda game every ten years instead of every 5-6.

It's fun to laugh at this thread now but people don't realize how ugly things were looking for Nintendo a short while ago. The Wii U was a disaster and smartphone gaming was decimating the 3DS in the latter part of the its life. Also, it wasn't clear at all that the "fusion" concept between portable and console that the Switch went with would be successful. The Switch had to do absolutely everything right and it did, but this doesn't take from the fact that Nintendo was at the lowest point since the NES during the Wii U era and was very close to becoming the next Sega. Hopefully the Wii U era teaches Nintendo to be less overconfident in the future. Just because a console like the Wii or the Switch catches fire and sells well doesn't mean that the general public will buy any piece of junk you throw at them or that developers will just figure out how to make it's gimmick popular. Nintendo should keep this in mind with the successor to the Switch: the market is changing quickly and finding the new cool requires effort, being able to tell your users what they want and need and reflecting on what you have been doing in the past in ways that makes you uncomfortable...

Can't we just let this thread die already? I cringe a bit every time I read this title

OP understood he was miserably wrong, I see no point in circlejerking the subject

Wrong conclusion. The next sega is wrong because Nintendo has loads of money in her bank account. 10 billion when wiiu disasters occurring. For better or worse Nintendo is a stable company. 

Yeah, but do you remember Nintendo's stock and Iwata taking a 50% pay cut during the Wii U era? These were not good times for the company.  Furthermore, there was a whole generation of kids during those years who grew up with Angry Birds not even knowing or caring about who Mario was.  Nintendo's brand, investor confidence and savings all took a crap kicking during the Wii U era.  Now I agree with you that Nintendo's savings prevented them from having to make cuts during the Wii U era which was huge because it didn't take away their ability to create amazing games and dig themselves out of the hole that they dug with the Wii U (unlike with Sega after the Saturn who couldn't be saved even though the Dreamcast was a great console).  But if Nintendo even had one more generation that was less successful than the N64 coupled with the fact that the dedicated handheld market is now gone, I guarantee that they would be making smartphone games right now.  In fact, Nintendo even started making a few smartphone games in 2015 and that was initially done to placate the demands of investors who didn't like Nintendo's outlook in the dedicated hardware business.  For a publicly-traded company investor confidence is > cash in the bank.

Don't get me wrong, I am a huge Nintendo fan, the Switch has turned out be an incredible prodigy and I am very happy that Nintendo can continue enjoying the success that they have known since the 80's with Mario and Link being household names.  That said, we should never forget about the Wii U era or be overconfident because history has a way of repeating itself.  The fact is that Nintendo's successes have been amazing but their lows have gotten progressively lower over the years with their bum consoles (N64 - 33 million, GCN - 21 million, Wii U - 14 million).  Whatever comes after the Switch cannot flop because Nintendo does not have an alternate platform like the 3DS to carry them this time.  It was overconfidence that doomed the Wii U and Nintendo can learn from this and avoid it in the future.  I never want to be playing Nintendo games that are made by a company that has had to sell out its reputation the way Sega has.  Sega is an absolute travesty in my view because they were so good back in their day and a lot of their IP was as good as Nintendo's.

Was it about 5 years ago a report came out that Nintendo could lose $250 million a year for 38 years before they would be in any danger? So 4 years of Wii U didn't hurt them overall that much at all.

Indeed. 

Furthermore, with Sega, they had a long string of failures that led to their demise as a hardware manufacturer. The Genesis/Mega Drive was really the exception rather than the rule. The Master System didn’t do well at all as it was dwarfed by the NES. The Saturn flopped, all their handhelds flopped. The Dreamcast had a promising start, but as soon as the PS2 was announced, that was all she wrote.

With Nintendo, aside from the Wii U and GameCube, all of their consoles and handhelds have ranged from so-so (N64/3DS) to absolutely juggernaut (DS/Wii/Switch). 

They wouldn't be in any danger of running out of money, but they would be in danger stockholders voting to enact major changes and things like a hostile takeover.  If the Switch had performed as poorly as the Wii U, Nintendo's future as a console maker would be in jeapordy.

Yes, put Nintendo games on PC with mod support. Profit.