I'm sure most everyone has heard about the Oddworld guy's commentary (Nintendo killed Iwata!). 

Ignoring most of it, I want to focus on a specific point he made: that Nintendo makes it so that third parties can't do well. Branching off it, does the console maker in general have issues if a game fails to sell. 

For example....

Is it Nintendo's fault if third party titles don't sell well on their system?

Is it Microsoft's fault that Japanese originating games like JRPG's don't sell well on their systems?

Was it Sony's fault that PS3 titles had a long history of underperforming? 

Figure it might be worth expanding this beyond Nintendo because people debate Nintendo's blame with third party issues more than some people debate the bible at this point.

Yes, No, Maybe So

Nintendo and third party games are simply a failed marriage. The offspring of that marriage more often fails than succeeds. So third parties are very careful with releasing games on Nintendo systems. Now in general third party developers are fine with pc/ps4/Xone. But every now and than there are whining gamers which think that third party games must release on Switch and get sour if they don't and that's where this discussion comes from. Third parties litteraly fled to playstation during the N64 era so Nintendo has only to thank itself for its current relationship with third parties and considering it's way less difficult to transfer a game from PS4 to Xone (basically the same system anyway) than PS4 to Switch is going to take a while before third parties are going to really support Switch. If Nintendo wants third party games they need to have a system that is appealing for third party games which means easy porting and Nintendo doesn't provide that. Because there are few (new) non exclusivr third party games on Nintendo systems. Most owners of these consoles will not buy those games and buy Nintendo games instead. So third party studios in general choose to not take the risc or make an exclusive game for Nintendo with minimal risc.

Yes and no.For one hand, it is somewhat the manufacturer fault not fostering a market for that kind of genre.Ideally, any console should be ideal to play any kind of game.But for the most part, its not Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft job to make games of other companies successful.Thats the company own job, with marketing or whatnot.Also, the developer should have in mind what kind of audience a console has, and if it fails to do so, its it own fault.

Oddworld lack of sales was far more than those issues(being a late port and other issues) but in general, it wasnt Nintendo fault.

I'm going to fathom a guess that Lorne Lanning wasn't talking about the Switch in April seeing as how it's a very third-party friendly platform. Switch supports Unreal Engine 4, a very popular engine and the cost of a Switch dev kit is about $450 which is many times cheaper than dev kits for other platforms.

Seems quite inviting to me.

I mean, he's asking for a simple answer to a very complicated question.

Nintendo had an indie-only direct, has moved to Unreal engine, has posted all new eshop releases since last gen, posts trailers all the time, and has continued to build stronger relations with 3rd party and indie devs.

Not every game will do well. Simple as that. Oddworld was a late port targeting the wrong demographics. People can mention the NES and Nintendo's past mistakes, but the past is the past. They now have dev kits for $500, which is a great way to help indie devs develop more games for the system.

What more does Nintendo need to do? Give up all advertising for 1st party content and give it to decades-old games? Their games matter more. It's up to the other developers to make a successful game

For a partnership to succeed, you'll need commitment form both parties. I don't think there's much else to say.

A high tide lifts all boats but not in Nintendo's case.

Nintendo does have its problems when it comes to marketing/promoting third party games especially if it's from western developers but in Oddworlds case I think there was just a lack of interest since other titles like Shovel Knight did well on Nintendo consoles so no its not really Nintendo's fault.