no love for Mario Kart 8 deluxe? 

I don't see how Other M could've done without Samus. The whole story was about how the final events of Super Metroid lead her to abandon her badass bounty hunting ways and learn to follow orders instead...a conservative theme that is precisely the whole problem with the game, as it elminates both of the franchise's traditional appeals: the sense of freedom that it offers (Metroid was one of the first action-adventure franchises to offer semi-open-world design) and the feminist appeal of a strong and independent female lead in an action role (I believer the original Metroid was only the second action-adventure in history, and first to make to the Western world, to offer one, the vanguardism of which is responsible for cementing her iconic status in the gaming).

Federation Force can be considered in many ways simply a logical extension of that same problematic trajectory, with its story revolving around the Galactic Federation's quest to become autonomous and not need bounty hunters anymore. That premise makes it easy to just get rid of the most iconic female hero in games altogether. The bottom line is that the thematic direction Nintendo is taking the Metroid franchise needs to change if the franchise is to ever revisit the things that made it awesome in the first place. That's my view.

And track design, number and variety of tracks, item balancing, 200 CC, online play, highlight sharing, ect.

Arguing sales as a measure of quality would lead to the conclusion that New Super Mario Brothers Wii is better than Super Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Super Mario World, and Super Mario Brothers 3.

MK8 has double the attach rate of MKWii.  If you own a Wii U, you own MK8.

Wii U's biggest problem was marketing.  The general public thought it was an add-on for the Wii, not a system.  It's second biggest problem was one of the worst droughts in Nintendo's history in the first half of 2013, almost immeidately after launch.  It couldn't build any momentum after that, despite many considering it to have had the best lineup of the big 3 in 2014 and more great games like Splatoon and Mario Maker in 2015.  The Wii had so much momentum that when it started to get periodic droughts 2 years in it no longer mattered, and it's droughts were never as bad as the Wii U's early drought.

I don't see how Other M could've done without Samus. The whole story was about how the final events of Super Metroid lead her to abandon her badass bounty hunting ways and learn to follow orders instead...a conservative theme that is precisely the whole problem with the game, as it elminates both of the franchise's traditional appeals: the sense of freedom that it offers (Metroid was one of the first action-adventure franchises to offer semi-open-world design) and the feminist appeal of a strong and independent female lead in an action role (I believer the original Metroid was only the second action-adventure in history, and first to make to the Western world, to offer one, the vanguardism of which is responsible for cementing her iconic status in the gaming).

Federation Force can be considered in many ways simply a logical extension of that same problematic trajectory, with its story revolving around the Galactic Federation's quest to become autonomous and not need bounty hunters anymore. That premise makes it easy to just get rid of the most iconic female hero in games altogether. The bottom line is that the thematic direction Nintendo is taking the Metroid franchise needs to change if the franchise is to ever revisit the things that made it awesome in the first place. That's my view.

Much better argumentation.

I do agree that a handful of 3rd party blockbusters have been driving the industry. This is in part a big problem, as these guys bitch they can't compete Nintendo (you may notice certain problem with the argument with the data you provided) but everyone else is in the same situation with these third parties: nobody has the money to compete them, and 3rd parties are driving each other to bankruptcy. However, we're talking about a console's success, not the success of the industry. As far as I can tell Switch already has more interesting games coming out, than the 8th generation home consoles had combined. If the developers don't make games the market want's to play, it's really their problem and not the market's problem. 

Argument between Nintendo and third parties not coming along is proved false by the 3rd party support on Nintendo's handhelds. Just the blockbuster model do not like Nintendo, because Nintendo isn't discounting them royalties.

The reason why 3rd parties did so bad on Wii was because they did not understand the Wii customer and the people who were interested in multiplatforms, already had another platform to play them with (keep in mind the huge overlap between ownerships of PCs, PS360 and Wii). One mistake was to make games only for the casual gamers - that make the core of the industry - but not to previous non-gamers and/or oldschool gamers. The casual gamers are very much the heart of the industry, this is the people who buy FIFA, COD and the rest of the blockbuster games. 

You point out your sister as a rule, not an exception, and go on to call her a non-gamer, but still contradict it by saying Wii was made for traditional gaming audience (the casual gamers). Yes, there were certain type of accessible arcade games that sold on Wii and were driving it's sales. And when you look at Wii U, it does not have these type of games

One interesting thing with Wii audience and the traditional audience is, that the Wii audience is viewed more as gamers from the outside than the traditional audience: apparently you as traditional audience have strong emphasis on who makes the games, whereas I as a Wii audience care only about if the games are good. This is why you saw Wii as an anomaly to a trend, when it in fact was following a different trend where people buy only the games they like.

I think I'd still get one too, but I would've waited until later in its life before buying it, instead of getting one in 2013 like I did.

Whether or not the third-party blockbusters are better or worse than first-party games is a subjective argument, so we can't really make headway with that. Third-party publishers have followed the very common business model of acquisition and consolidation: Activision Blizzard, EA, etc. As you well know, we have the extremes now: the indie and the mega publisher scenes. I firmly believe that these third-party games and the corresponding ability to offer the best performing version of them drives sales; price also appears to be an important factor, but the PS4 is still eating the X1's launch at the same price. I know I mentioned this before, but the NS' MSRP concerns me for this very reason. 

Based on your comments, you're a traditional gamer like me (Apple IIGS to PS4P) and appreciate a graphical phenomenon as much as mechanical one. Motion controls, MMOs, cel-shading, 3D, force feedback, etc. all meant as much to me as playing Uncharted 2 the first time. Given the commonality of portable systems, airplay, and other similar features, I don't see substantial differentiator for the NS. The Wii truly was an anomaly, especially when you look at its best-sellers list: aside from Mario Kart and Mario Bros, every other game was a one-hit wonder. This includes games of similar design on other systems, which is a strong indication that this was a very different demographic than what has defined the traditional/mainstream market for 30 odd years. It's also a strong indication that the traditional audience focused on the PS360, where the multiplats were the best-sellers, despite failing to sell well on the Wii. I ran into an issue with semantics with "traditional," "mainstream," "hardcore," etc. My sister comprised a significant portion of gamers who bought the Wii as their only home console; I notice a lot of bleed between handheld owners and this segment, which seems increasingly important for the NS' success. The wording sounds contradictory, but I blame English for not keeping up with the times.

As I'm sure you have now gathered, I love a great experience, regardless of the experience's driver. The Wii offerred very traditional fare, outside of the software built around its novelty. This is very dangerous territory in today's marketplace, because the rise of CoD, EA Anything, GTA, and the like seems to havecome at the expense of Nintendo's, Sega's, and Sony's first-party offerings. For ten years, they've been driving Master Chief, Mario, Sonic, and Crash underground. I won't say that it's good, bad, or indifferent; I will say that it is the current market. For someone who's never owned a CoD, it's odd to see that game lead the proverbial industry cart: and industry I gew up with (They're all posers lol!). The gamers have consistently spoken and said that they want the best-perfoming multiplats (CoD or GTA since 08) on systems that are the most affordable. 

I actualy got mine in 2013, but late in the year (November), when Super Mario 3D World came out, so it had been out for about a year, and a few games had come out for it that I could get. I suspect I'll probably do the same with the Switch, in that I most likely will get it at some point, but not for several months or even possibly a year or more, when the library starts to get bigger (though Super Mario Odyssey may be one incentive for getting it before the end of 2017).

I may or may not get Zelda BOTW for the Wii U, or hold out for the Switch edition; I haven't decided yet.