I believe what those people means is success for third party games like COD or AC. Unfortunately, we won't be able to measure correctly the success or failure of big franchises on Nintendo hardware.
There are some third party games that doesn't sell good on Nintendo hardware, but others do. For example MH, DQ and P&DZ.
Proud to be the first cool Nintendo fan ever
Number ONE Zelda fan in the Universe
Prediction: No Zelda HD for Wii U, quietly moved to the succesor
Predictions for Nintendo NX and Mobile