Edit: Whoop, I need to wake up. Didn't read OP carefully. Leaving the rest here to have some contribution.
I'm not a marketing person, but the way I see it is that Nintendo is suffering from the consequences of their blue ocean strategy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy
Blue Ocean Strategy is, IMO, going after a customer base that the competition isn't going after and catering to their needs. That, IMO, necessitates that you abandon your current or "conventional" customers.
So, they've done that with the Wii, dissapointing and alientating a number of "hardcore" fans. Now, the new customers they attracted either don't care about the WiiU, or moved on to things like social gaming.
So you have a console that:
1) Isn't able to charge a premium
2) Isn't able to make significant royalties due to lack of 3'rd party support
And worse, is having trouble gaining a user base.
I don't know what I would have done if I were Nintendo. You could either try to do a hard claw back into the HD market, which could be justified by saying that the new customers attracted to the Wii aren't loyal and interested in the WiiU. Or, you could try to continue catering to the new customers that they gained with the Wii (emphasize the tablet as being great for kids education maybe, IDK).
To be honest, Nintendo just doesn't really seem to have a clear strategy.
