The strategy that began with the DS was right on the money... really, a lot of money.
The only problem was that it wasn't perfect.
From a core gamer or hardcore gamer perspective (for this point, sames as MS and Sony consumer perspective), the franchises Nintendo created were more geared towards non gamers and that hurt Nintendo in the end.
Yes, they brought us Excite Truck, Xenoblade and Last Story and other games, but that wasn't part of their core business. And even after they had already won the non-gamers heart they still didn't go with full force after MS and Sony gamers.
Basically, they forgot about one segment of the market that is more loyal towards consoles and handhelds than the non-gamer.
The signs were there and Nintendo ignored them.
From another perspective, the Wii strategy failed because when the market started to move away towards smartphones and tablets, the Wii strategy didn't change: it became centered on the Wii Remote and didn't transform into a Wii tablet, for exemple.
It's not like people stopped caring about those games that played on Wii, they just found them in more convenient devices like a smartphone and tablets.
When Nintendo failed to take the next step in new types of software and build a third pillar in the mobile segment, the market went away.
So what is happening with 3DS and Wii U.
3DS is losing mindshare in the market that was always their strongest: kids and families.
Wii U is doing below GC numbers because they tried to make a console for people who weren't there without offering anything better in terms of software and even hardware.
And for core gamers, from the start, there were no standout games - or games at all (that includes 3rd party games too); there was no message or marketing towards core gamers.
And 2 years after the console launch, we are still to get a decent release schedule.
