I see problems with all three approaches. The Wii U depends mostly on casual gamers, but the best casual gaming device for most people is the iPad Mini.
Never underestimate the power of Pokemon though. That alone can potentially change the tides.
Never underestimate the power of Pokemon though. That alone can potentially change the tides.
Consider for example how the Monster Hunter series became a cultural phenomenon in Japan and made the Playstation Portable incredibly successful. In contrast Sony's Monster Hunterless followup system, the Playstation Vita, has been a failure.
Of course it's impossible to predict which games will become phenomenons (though Nintendo seems to strike gold more often than others) and so when predicting game industry fortunes you have to make a prediction ignoring the possibility of a random breakout title, but then footnote that "of course anything could happen."
You are so right. It's annoying that the standard for "gamer" has become FPS players.
In my day, hardcore gamer meant you could have been into any genre, whether it be Japanese style RPGs, Japanese style shooters (I'm talking Raiden or Gunstar Heroes, not FPS), or fighting games.
The only reason why I keep a PS3 around is for stuff like Street Fighter and King of Fighters -- stuff that a "modern gamer" (i.e., gamers from the 360 era and forward) would probably call niche.
With very few exceptions, most of the heaviest gamers I know play games from almost every genre, and the more genres they play, the less likelier it is that they call themselves "hardcore".
The Wii U may make a comeback when an original Mario or Zelda game comes out for it.
The mistake Nintendo continues to make (which it made previously with the Game Cube) is releasing a new console without a "Oh my god I have to play this!" game.
So far Sony and Microsoft have not announced "Oh my god I have to play this!" games, either. At least, IMHO.
When everyone you know, including your 85 year-old grandfather, is getting in on the bowling/tennis action you know Nintendo did something right.
Wii Sports is probably one of the most important bundled games in console history. It was a killer app with system-selling universal appeal reaching well beyond just gamers.
The N64, SNES and NES all released with "Oh my god.. " games as well.
Screw Mario; what about Sonic? Sonic: Lost World looks like the coolest and most innovative thing they've done with that long-beleaguered franchise in well over a decade, and harks back to the radical experimentation they were trying with Sonic X-Treme in the mid-90s. It's my "oh my God, I have to play that" game, anyway.
Honestly, I think part of the problem with the Sonic franchise since it went 3D is that there's been too much innovation. Every game has to have some "revolutionary" new feature without the basic gameplay being polished - three characters at once in Heroes, cars and guns in Shadow the Hedgehog, the mach speed zones, vehicles, and telekinesis in Sonic 2006, the swordplay in Black Knight, the list goes on. I've always thought they would've been much better off going back to the style of the Sonic levels from the Adventure series, perfecting that, and then building on it with new features.
That's more the approach Nintendo took. Super Mario 64 laid the solid groundwork for all the 3D Mario games since and Sunshine and the Galaxy games were able to play with the formula a bit.
Anyway, Sega have hired a couple of writers (the writers of Happy Tree Friends as it turns out) to take Sonic in a completely different, more cartoony direction.