They seem to have this attitude that if they devote a Nintendo Direct to a game, that's the only publicity push it needs.

The obvious problem is that its generally Nintendo fans that watch them, so they're only really advertising to those  who already have a Wii U or were going to get one anyway.

This is indicative of a larger problem; they are aiming almost exclusively at their existing fanbase and not making the effort to bring in new gamers, which they desperately need.

What they need to do is aggressively advertise the Wii U's Q3-4 games to the mainstream public. REAL advertising; prime time commercials, sponsorships, billboards, a Tropical Freeze slurpee promotion, (come on, that one writes itself :p) stuff like that. Make sure that people other than the already-committed fans who watch Nintendo Direct know about their games.

Directs are a great way to inform the fanbase, but they don't have the reach to replace traditional advertising.

Well what are we talking about? Wonderful 101? That game was a niche game from the ground up. A broad marketing campaign wasn't wise. In contrast, Pikmin 3 has been advertised at lots of gaming sites, and has had a few TV spots as well. I've seen the Mario and Luigi commercial a bunch of times. It depends on the game.

I think you are wrong

If Tropical Freeze gets a slurpy then it will be the first DKC game to sell over 10 million.

But ya I agree, they should continue doing Directs but at the same time branch out and make there products known.

The generation where I noticed the most TV marketing from Nintendo was the NES (yup, I was gaming back in those days). The Super Mario 3 ad in particular ran a lot.

Since the SNES launch though they honestly haven't marketed on TV a lot even in the 90s. I'd saw the Zelda: OoT TV spot like 2-3 times compared to the Final Fantasy VII marketing campaign that I saw like 20+ times at least.

They tend to market heavily towards a console launch, I did see an OK amount of GameCube launch (weird ads) and of the Wii Would Like To Play commercials, but generally that fizzles out by the time the generation gets going.

Like for example I don't recall seeing any Skyward Sword TV spots. I saw the Metroid Other M commercial once.

How so? 

You think they advertise enough already, or you think Directs are watched by those who didn't already own or plan to own a Wii U?

I don't get it. Iwata already said during their financial briefing that Nintendo would concentrate their marketing efforts and expenses in Q3-Q4 due to lack of games in Q1-Q2; hence, the lack of marketing from their part....

few days ago i saw the first wii u ad on german tv. was a disney infinity ad. one of those ads where they act as if it would be exclusive and well known from games like fifa, asscreed or cod.

I've never even seen a poster for anything Wii U related outside of a game store here in Australia.

....Huh...that would work wonderfully. Problem being that they kinda lost the time period. Game launches in the middle of Winter. If it had been releasing eariler this would've been a low-cost effective way to advertise.

Nintendo really likes to rely on word of mouth, but that's isn't quite as effective anymore.