Microsoft would be missed the least. People who say that Nintendo wouldn't be missed on the hardware front are straight-up delusional souls, in my opinion. Here's why...
D-Pad. Second action button - Those were just for the NES. Think about what was possible in gaming because of those things. It changed the way we played games forever. I don't think enough of you realise just how much of a big deal running and jumping while being able to fire in different directions in Metroid is. If that's not an advancement of hardware, then I'm lost as to what is.
4 more action buttons, including shoulder buttons - SNES.
3D stick, Rumble - N64.
C-stick on GameCube was there, but Dual Shock existed before it.
Wiimote and Nunchuk - Wii
GamePad, asymmetric gameplay - Wii U.
Oh, and there's Dual Screens which were on some Game & Watch games, as well as the DS, and 3D without glasses on the 3DS.
I'll also put it out there that the Wii U, despite positioning itself somewhere between the Dreamcast and PS2 end of the 8th Gen scale, is still a very impressive piece of tech. The main screen image quality has to hold AND work in time with the GamePad; Sometimes two times the display, and a critical point ignored on the Internet, especially with regard to its true power and features. All on low power consumption. One would hope that future systems aren't solely about having more power, but greater efficiency. I think it's important, and hope it will be a consideration in the design of future consoles.
Of course, they would be missed because of software - there are reasons why you never hear people saying "I wish I could play Killzone or Halo on my iPhone/another console". But they say "Yay, another Mario game" because they secretly desire to play it
.
......................
Meanwhile...
PS1 just takes shoulder buttons from the SNES and says "A-Ha!! Have 2 more", then Dual Shock takes the N64 controller and says "Have another stick" - There's an argument which says we were just fine without a second stick. Since then, we've had Dual Shock 1, 2, 3 and 'gamers' who couldn't embrace motion controls will happily accept the SAME CONTROLLER for the fourth successive generation... Yeah.
XBox controllers copied the SNES and Dreamcast blueprints, while the XBox 360 controller has a similar layout to that of the GameCube... Dreamcast was also online capable, so it wasn't something that started with the XBox.
That isn't to say that Sony or Microsoft have nothing going for them. Clearly, they do. But the people playing down Nintendo's contribution to hardware are doing so because the Wii existed in an era of HD consoles, and for whatever reasons, they feel so 'burned' by it that they've forgotten everything else that Nintendo have and still continue to bring to the gaming industry's table.
But Yeah, LMAO @ the idea that Nintendo don't 'advance the hardware much' and would be missed the least on those accounts. Putting more powerful bits in your console isn't 'advancing hardware' - PC owners have been doing that for years. Also, when you look at mobile tech, there are others such as Samsung, HTC and Apple playing their part in advancing hardware. Only on NeoGAF... **Sigh and Roll Eyes...URGH.**