I wouldn't personally call Nintendo a 'hardware company'

They make innovative hardware and bundle it up with games that use the capabilities well. I think Nintendo would consider themselves an end-to-end experience company. And they can't do that if they lose control of the ecosystem by letting other people run their own software on it.

I said that BOTW was a "system seller'' and I meant that, but not in the sense that the end goal was to sell the console.

No. The goal of big first-party games like Zelda - which always happen to come out for new console launch time - is to make people own the console so once they have it, they buy more games for it. That's the long-term money. Twenty games over five years and every cent through their ecosystem.

Nintendo don't want to sell you open hardware, and they never will.