This feels very regressive TBH. While it's reputation as a medium has gotten a lot better in recent years, Video Games still have a bit of a stigma attatched to them. There are still a lot of people who believe gaming is just for kids and geeky males in their 20s or 30s. By asking Nintendo to double down on this, you're only asking them to reinforce these negative connotations. The gaming industry should be much more diverse than that. Nintendo needs to get the Switch into the hands of as many demographics as possible, and that includes kids, women, and yes, seniors. The existance of 1-2 Switch shows that Nintendo still isn't going to just settle for a small. safe bet audience, and it sold pretty well in that regard too, defying lukwarm reviews. 

No sense in limiting the Switch's reach, or stifle the creativity of Nintendo's own developers.

Was Wii Music great use of Nintendo's creativity? Or even Wii Fit? 

C'mon. Nintendo is too good for that, it's like having a great film director work on TV commercials. It's beneath him/her. 

We do have women playing games, we have more women playing games today than at any point, way more than even the Wii/DS era. Smartphones completely fill the need for that audience and you can't beat free. 

They like playing games on that format. They like free games. So let them have their segment of the market, why does everyone need to buy a $300 system and pay $50-$60 for a game. That is rightfully so something for enthusiast gamers. We don't need to keep banging a square peg into a round hole. 

Those PS4 sales and Switch sales are not regressive either, it's just good business. If they want to do something for seniors make a Quality of Life device for them, senior citizens don't need a freaking $300 game system that pushes a 100 million polygons. It's regressive IMO actually that every audience needs to fit the same hardware mold ... a lot of these people don't need a $300 game system, and as such don't need to be part of that market, we have multitudes of options that fit their lifestyles better. 

If Nintendo wants to be in the business of selling $50-$60 games and $300 game systems though ... the demographic for that market is clear. 

Wii Music was more of an exeption to the rule. What about games like Rhythm Heaven, Art Academy, Puzzle games, Visual Novels, and other casual genres Nintendo has done? What do you expect them to do, banish those games to smartphones with no Switch release ever? Nintendo is better than that. Nintendo still wants the Switch to be for casual gamers too, and you should be asking them to just limit thier audience growth just because you don't like it. 

Whether you want to accept it or not, hardcore gamers are the minority. Hell you think the PS4 is selling off of core gamers alone? No, it's also selling to those who want a media player to play some games on the side as well, IE, casual gamers. Hell, Nintendo's whole strategy with mobile gaming is to entice casual gamers to buy a Switch. Don't tell me "But it's $300 with $60 games, casuals will never buy that". If Apple has taught us anything, it's that consumers will buy expensive shit as long as it's desirable. The Switch both in hardware and software, is desirable, therefore consumers are buying it. 

Targeting casual gamers isn't shoving a square peg through a round hole when the Switch is designed to be as casual friendly as possible. What with 1-2 Switch, the Joy-Con sharing, even something like Breath of the Wild is designed to make the open world genre accessible to newcommers who may not have as much time to play games as more hardcore gamers do.

So no, targeting the core gamer exclusively is a loosing strategy, and making games only for that safe-bet audience is stifling to Nintendo's developers. Do you ever think the developers behind 1-2 Switch or Wii Fit made those games because they thought it'd be fun? Nintendo isn't the company who listens to what Armchair CEOs on the internet think, or what meaningless charts say when developing games. They make the games they want to play, not what market research want to play.

It's not a losing strategy. 1-2 Switch is not carrying Switch sales at all, if you remove Zelda, the Switch would be collecting dust on storeshelves. 1,2 Switch is selling on par with something like Nintendo Land, lets not get confused here as what is really pushing Switch hardware. 

Apple is a unique company that border line became a fashion company and they are a big part of the reason why the well for casuals has been poisoned. They have gotten that audience used to free games and now they don't want anything else. Forget $60 ... they won't even pay 10 bucks for a Mario game. That tells you a lot. 

FREE kicks the shit out of buttons to casuals. They don't even want buttons in the first place, so you have free games + more intuitive interfaces + a more convienant device in a smartphone. 

Besides Switch is selling great and PS4 is selling on pace with the PS2 ... what's the problem here? Sony just had their biggest profit in almost 20 years, Nintendo is inching back to a billion dollar profit. We are seeing record breaking sales every which way. 

But it's not successful because ... grandma didn't buy one? Meh. Screw that. Not every product needs to be every thing for every imaginable demographic on the face of the planet. 

I think you're looking at this the wrong way. You're thinking how is the Switch going to replace Smart Phones for casuals, when that's the wrong question. The real question should be, how can the Switch suppliment smart phones for casuals. Believe it or not, it is possible for casual gamers to play on both their phones and the Switch. They're not forever smartphone slaves like so many seem to think. 

1-2 Switch may not be carrying Switch sales, but it's playing a helping hand in driving interest in the system. Even if it isn't a system seller, simply having it exist automatically broadens the Switch's appeal for consumers. Even the Switch's flagship, Breath of the Wild is very casual friendly, since it's the type of game that can give you an acessible, yet satisfying experience even if you only have half an hour to spare, and it's a great game to ease casual gamers into more complex titles. 

And this is the key thing, If Nintendo can continue to convice people of the uniqueness of the Switch, and show how it's different from conventional mobile games, and how it can compliment smartphone gaming, then casuals will buy it. Sure, not all the games will be free, but like I said, people will buy expensive stuff as long as you make them want it. So far, Nintendo seems to be doing a pretty good job at that. 

Yeah well, you know you can go try and beg for the girl who's turned you down the last four times for a date and won't answer your texts. Or you can hang out with the totally cool girl who's waiting for you to call her. 

Casuals had their chance the last 7 years to come to bat for Nintendo and they have bailed on Nintendo and left them in dirt again and again and again. They did not show up for Wii Music, they did not show up for Nintendogs + Cats (and that forced Nintendo to take their first loss in company history), they did not show up for Nintendo Land. Or Wii Fit Plus. Or Wii Party U. Or Wii Sports Club. Or NSMBU. Or Mario Run even ($10 is too much I guess). Seeing a pattern here? From the start of this decade (2010) these people have bailed on Nintendo. They're not really showing up for Switch either. They liked the free Pokemon Go, whoopity doo, Nintendo is not a company that makes free games, as they've said themselves. 

Ever since they got their taste of free games on phones they've sent a clear message the last 7 or 8 years. At what point do you take the hint and move on?

Gamers need to stop being jealous of smartphones. Smartphones are a monumental change in human civilization (really), much like the PC and the internet before it. It is what it is, a dinky little game system was never going to compete with that. Hey great, good for Apple and Google, they bet the farm on that idea and won big. The traditional game manufacturers need to take care of their own. 

Nintendo can try out different genres sure, but they should *not* forget who is driving this industry and what is driving Switch success. If they marketed this primarily to casuals and made 1,2 Switch the lead game and had a bunch of commercials with women at parties, the system would have sales in the shitter right now. 

It's because they marketed to older men, made a system that doesn't look like a toy, and delivered a killer app that appeals to said audience that they're having success. So why go and now try to change that. If they get away from this they are going to get themselves into trouble. 

Casuals didn't show up to those games because the Wii U was a badly marketed, unattractive mess. And in the case of Mario Run, even fans of the game admit that it isn't worth the $10 asking price (if it was $4 or $5, it would've done much better). And it's funny how you say Nintendo doesn't make free games, yet they released several free games for the 3DS, and just released a free Fire Emblem game on mobile devices, which brought in way more revenue than Mario Run. Yeah, Nintendo doesn't do free games all right.

Once again, you're taking the wrong perspective with this. Nintendo knows the Switch won't replace people's smartphones. But they do know that it can be a great companion piece to one. The Switch is still marketed to casual gamers. I mean, look at the recent promotional material, and the extended cut for the Super Bowl ad. It wasn't just hip dudes playing Zelda, it was also people playing 1-2 Switch, families playing Mario Kart, and a grandpa playing ARMS with his grandson. It's pretty clear Nintendo wants as broad of an audience as possible with the Switch. 

You're right that they should also serve hardcore fans as well, but they shouldn't rely exclusively on them. Nintendo can make the Switch appealing to casual gamers, and they've done a good job at doing so. 

I suppose that a lot more kids/teens (like me) will buy it during the holidays.

Part of the reason the Wii U was "badly marketed" is because it tried to be all things for all people. 

If you're going to make a casual system, then make a casual system.

If you're going to make a core centric system then make that. Don't do the shit where you're trying to be both, that's where you get yourself killed. 

There is no room in the middle of road, unless you want to get run over, pick a side to walk on. Nintendo finally did that with the Switch. 

Yes the extended trailer has 1,2 Switch in it, but the actual commercial shown on the Superbowl has *zero* 1,2 Switch in it. And there's a good reason for that.

No grandpas or kids either. Just a college aged kid playing Zelda only. That's their Superbowl commercial, and that was a *smart* move.  

Other experiemental stuff can have it's place, but it's place is in the back seat, not in the driver's seat, successful companies know what works for them.

If you try to make a product for everyone there's a good chance you're actually going to end up with something that makes no one happy. You need to have focus and *priority* in what you're making. There's nothing wrong with making the most rabid buyers of $50-$60 software in the modern market a priority. They should be. 

And kids at least will come along fine, kids want what older kids want, they don't want what "mommy approves" for them, Nintendo has never understood this, maybe now they are getting it. Sony markets almost 0 to kids. But yet they've sold more home consoles to kids than Nintendo has over the last 20 years. Ever wonder why that is? 

You mean their parents buying it for them.