For those that just want the gist,
price, games, controller that works.
Ian, what you want will never happen. Nintendo is never going to be the SNES again. The Wii's biggest problems were lack of options, like you addressed with the controls; online features, i.e. friend codes, being SD only, and the stigma of the name, I would add Mii's but that is a personal preference the masses seemed to dig them so whatever.
Wii U's biggest strength was it fixed most of the Wii's problems its weakness was always price, marketing, lack of games, and over confidence. Nintendo needed to realize early one for Wii U to succeed they needed to get more games out quicker and they needed to bring the cost down quicker. The stupid thing hasn't dropped in price since the PS4 launched, that is terrible.
I see bigger things for NX but I do think the issue of 3rd parties needs to be put to rest. Nintendo has existed to some degree without major 3rd party support for 20 YEARS, they had major 3rd party support for TEN YEARS. At this point it is blatantly obvious we all, ALL buy the Nintendo console for the 1st party games. Now I agree that Nintendo forgets that not every gamer likes every game so they need more diversity but 3rd parties are never coming back. Nintendo could literally do everything right and 3rd parties will still shrug them off, the market has changed since the SNES, the 3rd party games that you clamor for, the Mega Man's the Castlevanias, etc, they don't even truly exist anymore.
I think Ian, it isn't the 3rd party games you are missing, you already can get those on your PC, if you don't have a PC what are you doing on a discussion board posting from your phone, play the 3rd party games on your phone, on a tablet play them there. A consumer doesn't have a right to demand anything from a company you buy what they make or you don't end of story. You like Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Metroid, if I remember correctly F-Zero and RPG's, and a few fighting games. Are you getting THOSE games on PS4? I didn't.
I am happy with my PS4 because it had the few games I wanted it to have that Wii U didn't but I still use my PS3 more than either. Why? Because it had the games.
That asside, I think we all have to face the reality the world has changed, Nintendo did change with it but not in the way we wanted. Some people wanted Nintendo to keep doing what worked 25 years ago, others want them to just follow Sony and make a Playstation that runs Mario games, that won't happen. What I am saying is it doesn't do anyone any good to get their expectations in the wrong place.
Nintendo doesn't need Call of Duty, the gamer who BUYS and PLAYS that game isn't into Mario, they are into Doom, Assassin's Creed, Resident Evil, and Halo plus any game that looks or plays like those games. The GTA gamer is not interested in Mario, they play GTA and games that resemble it.
Yes Nintendo should strive for reaching the widest audience, but they need to be realistic, there are different types of games, those that really want the visual experience, the cinematic experience, they HAVE to get a Sony or an Xbox or play them on the PC, because those games require a level of commitment that you need a large hard drive and online infrastructure and internet community to support, Mario, Zelda, Kirby, DK, etc, you just need the characters to look good, Wii U looked good, do you really need Mario to look like Tomb Raider or Zelda to look like Skyrim? Who would buy that?
We go in circles every generation, all of us do this, and it is because our tastes differ. Nintendo is not going to get the RPG games back, those gamers have settled on Sony, Nintendo can at best hope for GC level of RPG output which was pathetic or at worst N64 and Wii U level which is damn near zero.
What does that leave? More than you give them credit for! Nintendo lives and dies on retro, not just true retro but the retro image. The memory of things like Mega Man. Do they need a true proper Mega Man game? No they do not, they have those they are on Virtual Console, I would wager money that ANYONE who plays Mega Man games will tell you those first 6 and Mega Man X are about the only ones really worth getting anyways so why bother porting a new one. If you want a new Mega Man game might I suggest you try AVGN Adventures, there are a pair of them.
What about platformers, Nintendo does those better than anyone. Hell if you look at their best consoles, NES and Wii, they were sold on gimmick sports games and weird controllers, when Nintendo does the "traditional" console that gamers and 3rd parties "want" them to do, they fail. Sure in the end raw numbers show SNES beat Genesis. But that is only if you look at it in the end at raw numbers. Sega kicked Nintendo's ass for three years, then it was a virtual tie before SEGA threw in the towel and conceded the market to Nintendo only to half-ass their way back in once they recognized it was a mistake. I am not saying Sega was better than Nintendo but 3rd party companies did, they wanted out from under Nintendo so they flocked to them first chance they got. Sega did things Nintendo was afraid to do, they took risks. When Nintendo takes risk, they roll the dice, it is rare they take risks anymore more often than not they play it safe, why because that works.
We can go back and forth all day long does their next console need Street fighter games or doesn't it, well if you like them or you don't it doesn't matter reality is they are not coming to the system so if you like fighting games and you like Mario games you have to face reality and buy both consoles. My question is who cares about support any more anyways? One think that being an aging gamer has taught me is that I do not need to own all three consoles TODAY in order to enjoy them in a few years from now. For me, You, Adrock, all of us here, if we really want to go back and play those fighting games, those RPG games, those Minecraft and GTA games, wait five years and pick up the Sony console cheap and load up on cheap games. Pick your current gen console, stick with it and then go back to the **** you missed, it's pretty much the way we have been doing business for THREE DECADES now. Face it, accept it, get over it.
No, Nintendo does not NEED all the third party games in the world, YOU want that so you can buy one machine, save money and not have to give money to Sony. Here is a solution, buy the games you want on Steam and play them on your PC, then in three years get a used or bargain bin PS4 when they are on clearance and then load up at the used game store.
NX needs two things, it needs to be priced right, and it needs to have games (Nintendo games) at a regular pace. I would argue it also needs traditional controls but it doesn't it needs controls that work, as long as they work for the games it gets. Do I want a PS4 that plays Nintendo games, sure but I don't want to pay for that, I chose PS4 for current gen and Wii U for Nintendo games, I as a consume realize that was necessary. I then picked up a cheap PS3 and never looked back. I also got a pair of Wii consoles, a pair complete working, for $5 bucks, WE are not the market Nintendo is chasing, they are going after kids and the rest of us will buy it anyways we always do. The kids that grew up on Playstation are not going to convert to Nintendo fans, the kids that grew up on Xbox need mental health evaluations when they should have just stuck to their real PC's and not put MS on the damn map, everyone else that games does it as a hobby occasionally.
Price, games, controls that work. When they do that they sell good when they don't they sell bad. Nintendo needs NX to sell well and if walking away from the dedicated console space, something MS and Sony are doing anyways, then that is what it takes that is what they need to do. Then the games that WILL sell to the Nintendo crowd will make their way on the console and the games that won' never were going to anyways. Remember outside NES when Nintendo FORCED developers to be exclusive, Nintendo never got all the games anyways even your beloved SNES, Genesis had DOZENS, literally dozens of superior games than SNES that SNES either didn't get or their only claim to fame was more colors.