Well said. Yeah, Nintendo is currently between a rock and a hard place.
I have a feeling that the Wii-U came to be solely because of one idea. 'How about a controller with a touchscreen like the DS'.
That one idea is where they've bet all their money on and not once during development have they reconsidered the idea or asked themselves WHY people would want that on their home console. It proved to be useless and underutilized in 90% of the Wii-U's library and the console has very, very little to offer beside that one gimmick. They were so focused on whether they actually could, they stopped wondering whether they should.
So let's all hope that Nintendo doesn't have this kind of tunnel-vision again with the NX. I can imagine them going crazy with the idea of a modular system or a handheld/base console type structure. But I hope they actually look at the idea critically this time instead of just dropping it on the market acting like it solves a problem that doesn't actually exist in the real world.
I hate to envoke Sean Malstrom, because he's a dick, but I think his writings on Nintendo are incredibly on point, especially his idea that Nintendo has "Arcade DNA" along with Sega, while companies like Sony and Microsoft have "Computer DNA". This manifests itself in design choices and in their games.
Sony and Microsoft rely heavy on games with strong narratives, lots of features, deep gameplay for audiences that would normally be "PC" oriented.
Nintendo historically comes from arcade development and design wise generally focuses on easy to pick up, hard to master style games, games that anyone can basically understand within seconds of playing.
I feel like this is probably where Nintendo can differentiate itself. The Wii felt like a arcade machine, this is why Sean Malstrom postulates it was so successful, because games like Wii sports perfectly capture that ideal of "Game for everyone". I don't think people remember how fucking crazy huge Wii Sports was, me and my friends have probably sunk hundreds upon hundreds of hours into it.
The Wii U appealed to nobody, it didn't appeal to casuals, it didn't appeal to core gamers. It had no vision. It's sort of like modern Zelda games, not made for casuals, but too easy and shallow for hardcore audiences, so it sort of just meanders around not really having a concise vision.
