Nintendo is doing what they're doing lately entirely because it fits in line with the business strategy they've chosen. To wit: why release a steady stream of "blockbuster" games when those take years to develop and bring in only marginal returns? It makes far more sense to focus one's efforts on "sleeper hit" games that take off slowly, but never really lose momentum. Those are cheaper to make on the whole, and bring in far, far more profit. Even giving those games a large budget still isn't as expensive as giving a "blockbuster" game a minimal budget.
Blue Ocean Strategy is all about getting new customers and keeping them. To that end, the "sleeper hit" game is a far better idea than the "blockbuster". The reason why those "sleeper hit" games never seem to stop selling is because people picking the system up also pick those games up on recommendation or reputation. A "blockbuster", on the other hand, is traditionally front-loaded in sales and quickly gets forgotten save for brief holiday bursts. You get more new customers with the sublime than with the extravagant. And new customers do not transition from sublime to extravagant quickly. So it just makes sense to keep the product stream loaded with few front-loaded games and lots of slow-but-steady sellers.
Hopefully that will clear some things up.
Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.
