I thought it was already general knowledge that the gamepad held back any more power.  It wasn't like Nintendo was out of money like you said because they have billions in the bank (I believe they drained it under 10 at that point).  Nintendo doesn't usually sell consoles at a loss and they don't want to sell a bloated system for over 400.  So because they went the gamepad route which added cost to the system they could only make it marginally more powerful then the previous systems the competition had.  They just had bad marketing at the time and people are apparently stupid because even after putting out the brochure that it was a new system they still thought it was an addon.  It would have been more clear maybe if they called it the Super Wii perhaps.  Anyways their failure with Wii U lead to some changes and now you have the Switch.

Gamepad costs would not have given power to challenge the PS4 that's his argument read my above post for reference, Gamepad with out added graphics would have put the console at selling break even going by the estimated costs flying around (some say 50 quid some say 70) essentially a bit lower returns than GC achieving tiny profit, going for extra power instead of the gamepad would have still resulted in a loss look at the PS4 part in my above post it still sold at a loss at higher price point (100 quid more at launch) but Sony made money back with PSN and their licensing structure that Nintendo didn't have.

So even if the gamepad was dropped for power they'd still have to sell at significant loss and would still be well below the PS4's ability especially as Wii U would have been built on 2010 tech compare to the 2012 tech PS4 had, you've fallen in the same trap thinking 10bn in the bank meant they could do anything, Wii U caused a 387m loss in its first year offsetting any profit from the portable market meaning the money it cost them was higher the figure is the end result. 387m is over a third of a billion and that's with as he put it a bare bones HD console that 10bn is a lot when you have a viable business model but not when you incur losses like these over time especially when you're dominating the portable market and still making these losses otherwise you end up like that travel company Thomas Cook who had a bank and still went under.

Let's look at another "failure": the Dreamcast. The console was more powerful than the PS1 and Nintendo 64, had a good games, wasn't too expensive. When the PS2 came out, the games were looking similar but the Dreamcast was already out for more than one year, so had already a decent library of games.

So why did it fail? If you are old enough, ask yourself: why didn't you buy a Dreamcast? When you have an answer, try to transpose it to the Wii U, you get good hints at why the console failed.

Sega running out of money didn't help the situation either. 

I'm starting to grasp what you are saying but still dont think Nintendo consumers care about top notch graphics.  Sure it helps if you can get 3rd party ports but most the blame goes to Wii U marketing and branding team in my book.  They went from perfect let's play Wii commercials to terrible commercials.  If they didn't have the gamepad they could have enough power to get downgraded ports like the Switch is getting.  Problem was that it was such a failure that third parties gave up on it within a year.  Switch seems to be getting good 3rd party support granted most are old games but there are some companies porting their new games like Bethesda.  Switch is decent upgrade from Wii U but it isn't mind blowing.

I still think if they continued supporting the Wii and waited another year or so and dropped the gamepad then they would of had a system that would be close enough for 3rd party ports of PS4/Xbox One games.  That's if the system was more successful and even then some third party companies don't even give a damn about that.  Just look how much EA hates Nintendo.

Sure, but still: the PS2 sold more units during the first year than the Dreamcast during its entire life time.

The early marketing targeted both audiences since it's reveal at E3 2011... This so called "shift" in marketing you're reffering to is when Wii U already lost most 3rd party support, how do you expect Nintendo to cater to core audiences when it has no core games to offer? You can keep denying this but all you have to do is look up all of the commercials showing mostly families and kids. Even the launch titles reflect this target on both casual and core audience it's really all over the Wii U marketing. What you said was that Nintendo full on stopped catering to casuals or broader audience as you like to call it and was the key reason for Wii U's downfall both of which is false because Nintendo never stopped catering to casuals and you keep going on with this. Nintendo predicted the Wii U to be a success based on Wii's success i've already proved you this with Kimishima's comments and now you're trying to use it against me lol. I already gave you the article where Miyamoto says Wii U was designed with both audiences in mind and your response was "yeah Miyamoto isn't perfect and Reggie contradicts what he said!" and "focus on more personal experiences" that doesn't prove Nintendo was full on focusing on core gamers and not casuals because the launch titles and later titles reflect this and they both failed.

You've basically repeated most of what i said and added nothing to counter my points. First you said Nintendo can't afford beefier consoles because of the billions of dollars Sony and MS lost but now you're saying that it's because it's not Nintendo's business model, I've already countered your "trump card" we are not discussing Nintendo's profit/losses we are discussing your claim that Wii U full on focused on core gamers and you still haven't proved any of that.

This is really out of this world news for him.

No, that's what you want to believe to somehow prove your point and then you backoff and say it's because it's not Nintendo's business model. The reality is that Nintendo has all the money to make more competent hardware it's just that they choose not to. They prefer their systems to be a balance between innovation and specs while keeping it cheap for families with children because that's always been their target audience. In fact, specs has become the least important aspect to Nintendo since the Iwata era. If WiiU really catered just to core audiences like you've said many times now and can't afford a beefier console, Why then did they spent so much R&D time and money on the Wii U gamepad, a gimmick neccessary for the Wii U to function and a much more expensive device than a traditional controller, instead of focusing on competing with it's competition? And no, i'm not talking about PS3 and X360 inbefore you mention them again. You talk about personal experiences, well all you really need for personal gaming experiences is a traditional controller like PS4 and X1 did, the Wii U gamepad is anything but traditional. 

That's the point I'm making to him Wii U was aimed at cores Iwata even says this in his Iwata asks in E3 2011, in his OP he said NS does well because it aims at cores again when really NS is aimed at everyone again and the focus is back on fun software the power game of the Wii U was part of an attempt to win over core audiences when Nintendo consumers for a while now never really cared.

Even if they dropped the gamepad they wouldn't have got ports as if you look at the tech from 2010 and 2012 the's not only a significant difference between the tech available but also the is a significant difference what Nintendo could go for and what Sony and MS could go for. For example lets go with the higher end of claims of what the gamepad cost that would bring it even with the loss the PS4 made with each unit being sold we know Wii U was losing around the same amount due to the investor reports but then you begin to factor in PS4 is 100 quid more while making that loss, so removing the gamepad would make the Wii U break even at the exact same price it had if we're going by the higher speculated cost it added and this is without adding anymore graphical power.

This means any further power would still force a loss again and the type of tech available in 2010 that they could get for that same loss still wouldn't allow them the power to challenge PS4 and X1 so they would have had the same problem regardless only without the gamepad that's why it's a misconception that they could of got a lot more power from dropping the gamepad. The reason for this is HD tech was still very pricey as it was still only 4 years into the HD era when Wii U entered development, if PS3 and 360 level tech were still losing money when manufacturing costs would have dropped by then then it's clear going for any HD tech above that was expensive this was a game Nintendo should never have played as it was a losing battle before it even began.

Switch gets ports because the tech inside it Tegra is from 2016 two years after the PS4/X1 so is more modern and easier to scale down to they were able to get it cheap because well Nvidia had a load of them that they didn't know what to do with they were just collecting dust after costing Nvidia money.

- Except Iwata in Iwata Asks E3 2011 said the console's focus is for a deeper experience something Reggie also alluded to and to bring in cores nothing you've said here debunks this what's even more ironic is Miyamoto is in that episode talking about how HD and online connectivity helps move toward the core audience.

- Wii U was getting those same core games up to 2015 the shift happened long before that it happened at the end of the first year when it was clear the Wii userbase didn't migrate.

- Are you serious? You're telling me you honestly didn't understand that business model is built around what you can afford to do? You really don't get that these go hand in hand? Business model includes managing your finance mate that's why I've posted investors reports with figures to back what I'm saying you tout the 10bn in the bank and I've shown you the costs of what you claim could have happened, business model is how you know a company operates to make money and as a result companies have to approach things in certain ways for that model to continue making money.

- As for your last part Nintendo have wanted to add a second screen ever since the GC hence the GBA/GC connectivity this was long before the blue ocean came into play so that concept has little to do with the blue ocean audience, with the Wii U and their assumption it would sell off name alone they went ahead with it as they thought it would help with their goal of a more personal and deeper experience.

- Where does it say "we will stop focusing on casuals?" Nowhere, the answer is that they tried to focus and please both audiences at the same time like i've been saying the whole time.

- What core games in 2015? You mean Devil's Third or Mario Party 10? I'm talking about 3rd party core games and the shift that happened after the first year, yeah that's what i was saying genius. Seems like it's getting too much for you now.

- No, you showed me Sony and Ms's billion dollar losses without any context and i countered that so now you've got nothing new to add, repeat most of what i already said and you fall back on Nintendo's business model.

- Yeah, just like i thought, no real answer just keep argueing for the sake of argueing. And yeah i've proved you multiple times now that Wii U was named and sold based on Wii's success but not with a more personal experience in mind like you claim, but with the casual audience took you long enough to understand it.