It's only been out 2 weeks, don't think trends are visible yet.
Fair enough.
I'm not sure what you mean by wii u technology.
Game engine technology. The Wii U is a DX10 hardware set (they're using internally whatever OpenGL level equivalent makes sense). From there it's relatively easy to transition to DirectX 11 tier hardware, and we actually saw most publishers try to upgrade their existing technology this way this generation transition instead of making true from-scratch engines.
PS4 titles? K1 sounds too good to be true.
Sorry, to be clear, I mean Japanese PS4 titles as most of them are also Vita or PS3 titles, or really low end despite being on PS4.
Obviously MGS5 and FFXV are not in the discussion, or most Western AAA titles. However, engines like Unity 5, UE4, or similar internal technologies that run on this kind of mobile hardware are applicable.
Is new hardware + mobile and indie games going to make a difference? Are consumers saying to themselves "I really want to buy a 3ds, but the technology is too old" or are they saying "I have a phone with free/cheap games, that's good enough"?
Well, I guess if we view it this way, they have an intractable problem in the West. That might not be a wrong assessment certainly, but at that point deciding when to launch the new system is pretty irrelevant since they'll go no where regardless of when they do it.
The only other thing I can think of is maybe it takes a long time to create the operating system, tools, online infrastructure, negotiate agreements, etc. And you have to have some launch software for a gaming system. It looks from the outside that Nintendo staff might be stretched pretty far already, supporting wii u/3ds and getting ready for qol/4ds/next-console.
The sentiment to release new hardware sooner rather than later is thanks to the underlying narrative of Nintendo rebranding themselves. In short, most discussions regarding Nintendo's future hardware/software output revolves around this idea of starting from scratch due to their significant market share loss. As future looking gamers, we are much more impatient than the average-joe, and thus the outcries for FY15 launches are heard loud and far.
Edit: to better answer the question, I think that as 'lean' of an organization as Nintendo is, the real downside is their lack of resources to simultaneously mobilize the Amiibos, QoL, current Wii U & 3DS pipeline and revisions, revamping their entire development methodology and organization (which, in my professional experience, can take a few years by itself) as well as schedule releases, negotiate contracts and develop software for new hardware. So the downside is stretching your SG&A budget to such a degree that your actual output can't sustain it.
This is true, and actually why I suggested building directly on top of both the art assets and game technology they already have. They can essentially downport Wii U titles and release them on both if they're worried about running tail end Wii U support at the same time, or upport late gen 3DS games.
They don't necessarily have to offer much unique content up front, since "The portable that runs all those games you didn't really want to buy a Wii U for but still wanted." could be attractive, especially with lots of cross-gen third party support, and then they should be in the full swing of it once they get a little bit into the generation.
This admittedly does hurt the Wii U, but um... that doesn't seem to be going anywhere, and they were fine with doing this with Smash Bros anyway despite it being a really key title for the system.
