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There's much truth with this post. Of course you can see some long term vision in all the products Nintendo has released over these years, but I don't agree every element was pre-meditated.

Of course I believe Nintendo had been looking to make a console that works both as an handheld and as an home system for a long time. As rightfully stated by the OP Gamecube a Gameboy connectivity and even the Gameboy player are a proof of that.
I also strongly believe the WiiU was internally an attempt to test waters for an hybrid console to come while counting on the Wii brand popularity to sustain it, only Nintendo overestimated it by a long shot.

In fact on the WiiU you could see for the first time home console games built on the foundations of portable games, like Mario 3D World based on 3D Land foundations and Mario Kart 8 which is basically an evolution of Mario Kart 7. Super Smash Bros was basically built form the gorund-up to work both on a home consoles and on an handheld.

On the other hand the Wii and DS didn't go directly into that direction, although they pursued the long term goal of lowering the expectation on graphics while focusing the player attention on other elements of the game experience.

Imo the only time when Nintendo used a real "gimmick" to catch the attention of players, is when they decided to sell the DS successor on the concept of stereoscopic 3D, while going quite against their own vision of the Wii and DS.