Unpleasable Fanbase, anyone?
They Changed It Now It Sucks.... TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Vocabulary/Life.
Well, I think there's no problem with pointing out Nintendo's shortcomings because if we didn't, Nintendo would get away with increasingly sub-par efforts (unless enough people spoke up... which is highly unlikely).
Nintendo seems to kinda take a few more days off than normal when profits are up and their products are selling like hotcakes. The Wii and DS are scooping up tons of revenue for Nintendo, so Nintendo is just sitting there with their Cuban cigars again saying, "We have the world by the balls." While they're sitting there enjoying their mountains of money, Microsoft and Sony are plotting ideas that will attempt to trump Nintendo and their systems. When that happens, maybe
that's when Nintendo will say "Ah crap... we gotta actually put some more effort into this again" and get their wheels turning.
"Casuals" make up a relatively large chunk of the Wii's sales. What I'm afraid of is when "Wii 2/HD" comes out, the "casuals" will look at it and say, "lol I already have a Wii; I don't need this system" just like when I asked for a Super Nintendo years ago and my parents asked, "Wait, don't you already have a Nintendo? [my NES]." When they see the higher price tag of the next one (and notice that their Wiis are dust traps/the only games they own are "Wii _____" titles, they'll probably steer away from it circling back to the "I already have a Wii/don't play it enough" reason.
It seems a lot of "hardcore" Nintendo players have had a falling out of sorts with Nintendo... some of them saying they won't buy the next one not because the "lack" of good games, but because the awful ratio of good games vs. bad games/mini-game compilations and Nintendo's "new direction." When people defend the good games on Wii, they always tend to fall back on the same handful that have been praised for a while now: Galaxy, Metroid, Zelda, Brawl, Mario Kart, SPM, Wii Sports, and now NSMB Wii, Madworld, etc. as of more recently. (If I didn't name some of your favorite ones, don't kill me). It seems for every good game on the Wii there are 5 mini-game compilation games or Mario Kart clones.
You may argue that developers don't how to utilize the Wii's capabilities. Well, for a lot of them, they've had over 3 years to figure out the architecture, and Nintendo has no excuse, really. Another point: I think the waggle craze is gonna die down. Nintendo went all-in with its motion control decision and it paid off very well. Motion control will be copied by other companies and will become very mainstream-ish soon... so if Nintendo thinks they're gonna be able to ride out the motion control craze forever, I believe they'll be sorely mistaken. They can say "graphics don't matter" all day long, but if Nintendo's Wii 3/4/5 is on par with a 360 when Xbox 1260 or 1440 comes out, I'll probably be annoyed.
What Nintendo Should Do:They have tons of R&D money to throw around. I say they kill all "lol wii iz for kiddies and lol ps2 grafix" bullcrap and pull out allllll the friggin' stops for their next system. Make a system that has the Wii's innovative motion control system, but at the same time, have every capability these other systems hide behind, as well. Blu-ray (maybe), external hard drive, 720i/1080i/1080p capabilities, an awesome storefront, an online component with tons more support and user-friendliness, the banishment of friend codes/everything that restricts online play, way more DLC support (who wouldn't want downloadable Mario worlds or a create & share level editor, for example?), etc. etc. etc.
If Nintendo could pull that off, I think they'd sweep the whole gaming market off its feet. No longer would the Wii's relatively low horsepower be a deal-breaker for people, and no longer could the Crashbox 360/Play-With-Yourself Station 3 guys say, "lol teh grafix suk." They'd have nothing to hide behind if Nintendo would just bite the bullet and stomp the other companies' asses into the ground with the system to end all systems.