grahamf

Not adult link, maybe not toon link, but a chibi link would work...

Sill, it's nice to know what your options are. Otherwise you could be using Wordpad without realizing Microsoft Word suits your needs better.

Also not exactly legal, and could possibly kill your Wii U.

It's plausible, but stupid. Nintendo is still conservative with their money and will be around for a long time even in the unlikely chance that they have to find alternatives. Sony is bankrupting themselves, and the Xbox is a significant drain on Microsoft's resources.

I'm not going to put my money towards a bet, but I expect Sony to eventually be forced to bow out of the console race or neuter the PS5/6/7/whatever to stay solvent. Microsoft I think will be restructuring the Xbox brand so that all's left is a version of Windows 9 that is optimized for controller navigation.

Windows 8.1 is pretty close in terms of interface, just that both Microsoft has to allow Steam games better integration into Metro and programming guidelines need to be updated to support controller navigation. I can actually see this happening easily. Xbox One games can be ported to Windows and back with minimal difficulty, and opening up Xbox so it's just a tweaked version of Windows (like how Windows 8 was designed to work on both touchscreens and desktops - only less drastic this time) could possibly make Steam machines redundant. Microsoft would have to work with Valve to make Steam's big Picture Mode seamless with the rest of the interface though.

Which would leave us with what? The Wii had the wii remotes which was it's smash hit, plus it had a buttload of games at launch, and the games kept coming. If the Wii U never had the Gamepad then sure it'd be maybe $50 cheaper, but it would also have nothing at all to distinguish itself from other consoles. It's proven that Nintendo's IP isn't enough to draw in new customers, and the old ones will only buy the latest and greatest for so long. It wouldn't have any of the touchscreen-designed ports, and all other multiplats would no longer have an edge that their prettier versions on PS4/XBone don't have. Hell, Nintendo had the Gamecube which ran circles around the n64 and the PS2, but that didn't stop it from losing to the PS2.

And I'd love to hear what you think is "better" that Nintendo could've done. Virtual Reality is still an expensive concept and we're a long ways away from something like The Matrix or Holodecks. It's easier to say that someone could've done something "better" but in practice "better is not always possible at the time. I can say Edison could've done something "better" than vacuum tubes and point at my laptop to prove it, but that doesn't make it true.