You only need to look at the wasteland of the Japanese market to see how a console that is also a successor to the 3DS will get more support than a straight successor to the Wii U.
I also think people are sleeping on possible western third party support depending on just how powerful the NX is. It's not going to get the vast majority of games but let me use COD as an example.
During the DS/Wii generation Activision continued to make unique DS versions and Wii ports. They tried on the Wii U but didn't get sales results to make it viable and the development costs associated with unique 3DS versions meant making separate versions was a no-go but if Activision could take those Wii U ports and put them on 3DS they probably would have. That's not to say COD will definitely be there but if Activision can do downgraded ports(the Wii versions lacked killcam and cut entire scenes if they couldn't run on Wii) I wouldn't rule it out.
I agree. Third Party support is important and AAA western games need to be at least technically feasible.
I´ve been thinking a lot about this recently. At first I asked myself why did Nintendo chose the hybrid route?
The simple answer is because they are not able to support their handheld and home consoles at the time. But they could have build 2 distinct devices (NX console and NX handheld) that use the same architecture and all Nintendo first party games would be available on both systems.
Now let´s go one step further. Why is the rumored handheld part of the hybrid so powerful? Why is there a clear departure from the usual pattern? Nintendo always used cheap parts and the handheld was never about strong hardware power but this time it´s the most ambitious hardware Nintendo has ever used in a handheld by far.
The reason is the NX hybrid does everything what a traditional console does (at a lower console performance level). It will not only run Nintendo console games but AAA western games aswell. Nintendo knows they stil have a huge console audience and therefore the NX has to be an appealing console aswell. I doubt they will abandon their console userbase.
Nintendo has obviously analyzed why the 3ds didn´t reach ds sales numbers even though the first party lineup is arguably stronger than the ds one and why the Wii U is such a massive failure. Hopefully they came to the conclusion that the gimmicks failed to deliver and their software is not as strong as it was 10 or 15 years ago. After that they investigated why the PS4 and XBO sell far better than the Wii U and why the PS4 has a huge lead over the XBO. The result should be the same. First Party software is not important, the huge AAA third party games sell consoles.
IMO they decided to make a hybrid because they were able to fulfill the following goals.
1) Console games run on the handheld at a respectable performance.
2) Console part of the NX is not too limited because it has mobile parts and stil appeals to the console audience.
3) Third party games run on the handheld and while docked.
I know some will say that AAA games are not possible and there is no audience on Nintendo system. First some insiders said the NX could easily run XBO/PS4 ports (OsirisBlack) or is nearly as strong as the XBO (Emily Rogers), this fits my analysis.The second part is right there is no audience for Fifa or CoD on Nintendo consoles but Nintendo wants to make a mainstream product. Just reaching the 3ds sales numbers is probably below their expectations. They certainly want to sell more than 80, 100 or even 150 million units. This is not possible if the NX is only a first party box, they have to reach people who are not primarily interested in Nintendo franchises. If there´s no Fifa millions in europe will not even consider buying this console. They need to have these games and offering a unique way to play (gaming on the go and at home) is a great idea. I´m not saying this will be a huge success and but they could grow and cultivate this audience slowly over a long period of time. Even if this fails the strong combined first party lineup will be the safety net.
Did they learn their lesson and made the right conclusion? I´m optimistic.