I guess you can say this is a follow up to my previous thread on third party games on Nintendo consoles. But a common complaint about Nintendo systems was that the company only designed its hardware for its own first party developers, with no regards or care to what third parties think. It's easy to come to this conclusion given the struggles systems like the Nintendo 64 and Wii U had when it came to securing developers, and in some ways it is true.

Some of Nintendo's home consoles in the past came off as if they were primarily designed for Nintendo's own needs. More specifically, they seemed like they were designed for Shigeru Miyamoto's needs. Everything about the N64 for example was designed in a way to suit the whims of Miyamoto for what he wanted to do in games like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The Nintendo GameCube's odd controller layout? That was all because Miyamoto wanted his games on the system to be played in a very specific way. The simple button layout of the Wii Remote? Miyamoto wanted to make console games more accessible to newbies.

These systems were designed in a way that that conformed to what Miyamoto wanted out of home console gaming, and while these platforms excelled at what Nintendo and Miyamoto aimed for, they struggled as general purpose gaming platforms, especially compared to Sony and Microsoft's consoles.

Nintendo often even kept its own developers in the dark about their hardware too. Super Mario producer, Yoshiaki Koizumi wasn't told about the full details of the Wii U until the moment it was revealed at E3.

But as I said in my previous thread on this topic, I don't think this should be a blanket statement that applies to all of Nintendo's consoles. Because if you look at its handhelds, there is a very different philosophy going on. While the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS for example had significant input from Miyamoto, the development teams of those systems understood that they still needed to function as general purpose game systems for other developers as well. The DS may have had its touch screen, but the system still had a full controller layout for more conventional gaming.

And on the topic of Nintendo taking in third party input for their hardware. It's actually a lot more common than people think. The 3DS' circle pad pro accessory? That was created solely to appease Capcom and other third parties for things like the Monster Hunter franchise (also the main reason behind the New 3DS' creation). The Wii U GamePad going with clickable analog sticks was made at the request of third parties as well. Capcom even asked Nintendo to increase the RAM of the Nintendo Switch to 4GB so that they could run the RE Engine on it (to which their request was granted).

Speaking of the Switch, from the very beginning, Nintendo worked to take input from both its own EPD teams, and various third party developers as soon as development of the Switch began. The final Switch hardware was the result of this back and forth communication (How Capcom got their extra RAM). In fact, the Switch takes more from Nintendo's handhelds in regards to third party relations and hardware design based on that, than it does its home consoles.

So does Nintendo design their consoles for their own games? Yes and No. Their strength has historically been with how they've integrated their hardware and software with each-other, even with the Switch. But I don't think they're as insular to other developers' needs as people have sometimes painted them as. It depends entirely on the console in question.

Nintendo hardware is super weak compared to the competition. For me their hardware is for 1st party titles and nothing else. Others feel differently, which is fair, given it is an opinion. I will always have Nintendo hardware, given they put the competition to shame with software exclusives.

No, Nintendo does not design hardware just for Nintendo games. Silly premise IMO.

With the N64 and the GameCube, yeah, probably to some extent at least.

Myth. But there is a thread of truth to it.

Nintendo has a very product driven approach. This was the primary motivation of Gunpei Yokoi's philosophy, and the successor to that known as the Blue Ocean strategy. Their purpose was to use existing and stable technologies in new ways that satisfied a large market demand. In this way, you could get things like the D-pad which is based on button technology that was a century old, but had not really been used for navigational purposes - joysticks were primarily used for this in the video game space.

The thread of truth is that there is obviously some symbiosis between the development of software concepts and hardware concepts. Think of science, there's a hypothesis, and then tests are needed to verify it as a working theory that integrates into the larger strategies. Some examples of this are the button combos in Nintendo's SNES games very much factored into their button designs, as well as the idea of touch games for DS, and motion games for Wii - the tests were the prototypes, found them to be a lot of fun, and then they knew their hardware hypothesis was the correct direction - Duck Hunt, Wii Sports, Pilot Wings, even Super Mario Bros 64 were all prototypes/advanced prototypes developed into release games. That's why Nintendo often comes up with the best new ideas for the industry, they have that unique approach to hardware development.

Here are some examples of their product driven features and aesthetics:
NES - d-pad, simplistic button design.
GB - portable handheld with an inexpensive screen, a media input, and long battery life.
SNES - Diamond face buttons, L&R triggers.
N64 - analog stick and 4 players
GBASP - Sleek design, folding, backlighting, self-charging.
DS - touch screen, 8 players, DS Lite featured the sleek design.
Wii - Sleek design, wireless motion controls (accelerometer and IR, later gyro), interface expansions making all catalogue games playable (remotes, nunchuck, and classic controller), online features (WiiConnect24/Wii channels, Netflix, news updates), photo-EShop (VC and WiiWare), and personalization (Miis).
3DS - glasses free 3D, street pass,
Switch - Sleek design, merging the DS/Wii stuff into a single hybrid unit that can be switched between home console, portable home console (with the kickstand), tablet, and handheld modes.

Note: I mentioned glasses free 3D, this one probably doesn't belong because it was new when it came out, and it was certainly not ready as there were a lot of errors with it, like moving vision to the left or right would cause the visuals to break. This was eventually fixed with new3DS.

Bottom line, Nintendo has almost always had a product driven approach. Even when they went outside of their core product philosophy (mainly with the Gamecube and original GBA to varying levels of success) it was because "Sega/Sony did this successfully, so this product with our game franchises might work better for us." So, I think Nintendo always had a consumer audience in mind. With Gamecube, the major problem was that the product already existed in a feature superior and more aesthetically pleasing form with the PS2 - that's why that one failed. Virtual Boy used old technology in a very innovative way, the problem is Gunpei Yokoi didn't think of the potential audience, so I don't think this quite counts - even geniuses compromise their own working philosophies make mistakes; similar to Iwata and co with the Wii U.

Nintendo calls it software/hardware integrated solutions.

So when designing a console, they are not doing it in a vacuum and do create games that use specific hardware futures. Or create specific hardware features because of new gameplay ideas. It's a parallel process, not one comes before the other.

So there is some truth in it, but I don't think they design a console with solely Nintendo games in mind. For example, they would design the console in a way that it's easy to work with for other developers. (not always successfully in the past mind).

Yes. Exactly this. This is what I was trying to get at above, but more succinctly, and probably in a better way than what I wrote above.

If you consider that the big triple AAA games aren't on the Switch, there is a lot of truth. Games like Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, GTA, Battlefield and Red Dead 2.

This is really well said. And if I could just editorialize a bit: I’m really glad Nintendo does this. Sure it leads to some superfluous features and even a few unsuccessful systems, but it really makes the company stand out. While Sony and Microsoft consoles are becoming more and more indistinguishable from PCs, Nintendo still operates at the intersection of technology and toy — which I greatly appreciate.

I like how you listed how controls evolved on Nintendo consoles. It's a great example on how Nintendo always thinks like "How can we have gamers interact with our games in new ways, therefore have a new gaming experience"