Yes it was a bad strategy and Nintendo is doomed because of it. They will go bankrupt next year, Zelda will go on cell phones, Sega will release a new console and Microsoft will stop making Windows.

no, they were pretty much the only gaming company to exit the last generation in the black as opposed to everyone else who encountered massive losses in one form or another or outright went bankrupt. People keep bringing up this "it tainted their image" argument, but we all know that's a lie. People were more than gleefully eager to launch smear campaigns against Nintendo even before the Wii. They did it with the GC and they tried and failed to do it with the DS. Same thing happened with the 3DS; gamers and the press tried to rail against for universally petty reasons, milked drama for all it was worth, and then proceeded to act like they never did after the 3DS reminded people why Nintendo dominates the handheld scene and has a damned tombstone collection in its backyard.

And then we must get into the BIG one. The fact that nobody likes to admit: that the "casual" audience is nothing new and outnumbers the "hardcore" by a vast margin. Seriously, does anyone seriously think that any games console has succeeded solely due to the "hardcore"? Because that is foolish. The SNES, the PS1, the PS2, 360, Wii, Game Boy, GBA, DS, NONE of these became successes due to the "hardcore", that is too small of a population to bank your future on, especially when it's been shrinking. And the fact that so many companies aren't interested in expanding the audience isn't good. It's like how American comics imploded due to not trying to get new readers in and became a very insular, elitist industry with no real future. They're doing the same thing gaming and are holding it back by not trying to expand the audience. I don't know WHY they keep doing it despite it being the logical thing to do, but they refuse to. And it's going to end up biting them.

Very well said, and it baffles me that nobody wants to try anything new with gamimg. "1080p 60FPS" pretty much passes for innovation. If gaming wants to survive then this needs to change. 

Yes it was a terrible idea. Just look at their current situation.

It was a good strategy, but only if we're talking short term. The long term is history by now.

they got billions of money.
So now they can lost money every year for 20 years that they will be still good.

So they have 20 years to construct a image again.

So, good idea.

lol you think after 20 years they'll still be able to build an image! Companies get distroyed much faster than that. Look at Sega, Nokia, Zinga.... etc.

Not necessarily... the bad decision was not supporting the Wii all the way through and taking the casuals for granted with a total lack of games from 2010 up until the Wii U's release. During that time they released Galaxy 2, DKC Returns, Zelda Skyward Sword, and finally brought Xenoblade to NA after thousands of gamers had to practically beg them to do it.

That's it, no other noteworthy titles, and the casuals all flocked to greener pastures during this time such as the 360 with Kinect and later Minecraft, and of course mobile and tablet devices, which killed their momentum leading into the next generation.

Then comes the Wii U, and Nintendo made too many mistakes to count here, not the least of which is creating a console with a library of games that neither attracts the casuals the way the Wii U did, or appeases the "core" gamers, and instead we're left with something in between which only the most diehard of Nintendo fans and gamers will support. They also have not done anything to build on the whole motion-control thing that made them a hit among the casuals... the Wii Remotes are still 2006 technology and the Wii U control pad is just a glorified tablet without the mobility and multimedia functionality of an actual tablet.

I wouldn't say going after the casual crowd was a mistake, but DEPENDING on them was. In reality if the Wii has a little more horsepower under the hood it probably would have still been strong enough to get most third party port, and if it had a network that matched PSN the gameplay differences would have been minor.

Short term it made loads of money and gave them a buffer. Even if Wii U is doing badly and Nintendo has been losing money, they are just eating into the huge profits from the Wii for now.

Problems are...

#1 Wii left a bad taste with core gamers. The motion controls were generally not great and didn't hit the expected potential. A majority of best selling games on the Wii are casual sports, fitness & dance games.

#2 For Wii U, Nintendo thought they can use roughly the same strategy of making a weak 7.2 gen console with emphasis on a "new way to play", this time being the Gamepad. When the "new way to play" didn't attract casuals at all they were just left with a weak console with no reason for selling except Nintendo's core IP games.

So luckily they are refocused on what matters which is Games.  I'm not saying that casual games are bad; actually diversity of games is important to get big sales.  They have to build a diverse library and they have to get 3rd party to help.  Nintendo should not try to think that their IP is all they need to sell a lot of consoles.  The most important thing for the next Nintendo console is to set up great 3rd party support, alongside Nintendo IPs.