I think an important thing to keep in mind is that it does not appear Nintendo is going anywhere anytime soon. Essentially, it isn't as if they've got to right the home console ship in the next two years or so... They can take another stab or two at it.
The one advantage they've maintained is that they aren't losing money when they sell a console, a reality for Microsoft and Sony that has led them to stretch the lifespan of their respective consoles out as long as possible. Microsoft's system is selling at a respectable rate so they'll likely be content to sit on it for another half decade.
Sony, meanwhile, is in a fairly dire financial situation to the point that it's not even clear whether or not they could release another console and absorb the initial losses even if they wanted to (consider, for instance, that just a year ago Nintendo's market value was higher than Sony's despite being exclusively a gaming company). When one considers that we're likely to see potentially terrible losses from the leaked movies/emails once they release their delayed quarterly report and that the PS4 is dominating this gen it seems likely they'll milk this console for all they can.
What I'm suggesting is Nintendo has the time and money to approach this situation with caution, and the next system needn't necessarily be a make-or-break for them. Some of these comparisons to sega's situation through the 90's are certainly unfair; Microsoft isn't going anywhere (they treat the Xbox almost as if it were a pet project with it serving as the face of their company, never expecting actual profit with a massive piggy bank to fund it) but the current leader of this gen has been hemorrhaging money for some time now and won't want to participate in a quick succession of generations.
Nintendo has generally made sound business decisions from the start, still have enough money to operate at a loss for many years to come without issue, have worked their way out of the red despite an unpopular home console, still dominate an admittedly dwindling handheld market... Basically, there's no need for the doom and gloom jargon when discussing their future. As has been shown nearly every generation, there's very little brand loyalty in the NA market; there's no reason we should project forward and count Nintendo out of this race over the coming decade.
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