Nintendo has dominated the handheld market this generation and isn't doing record breakingly bad with the Wii U. maybe their weakest console ever, but there have been plenty of video game consoles in the past both sold LESS and had worse game libraries and quality
Nintendo will be fine. Nintendo will not release the NX until like 2017, they just want some positive press and for people to know that they are looking towards long term goals rather than floundering in short term ones. and they have the cash to have that attitude
all I know is that people love to point out how poorly Nintendo was doing in the Gamecube era, yet they managed to profit MORE than Sony in the period of time, despite the PS2 being the best selling console of all time.
Nintendo financially probably isn't doing that amazing, but fortunately years of success have put them in a good position to be able to take risks like they did with the Wii U.
who defines 'ready' for a generation anyway? no way does the NX come out in 2016, so actually it will be about appropriately timed their next release. make no mistake, the console NX will have pretty good graphics, Nintendo will not repeat that mistake. the only reason the Wii U failed graphically is because Nintendo took a relatively lazy approach where they used similar infracstructure/specs doubled in comparison to the Wii and focused on the controller more than the system itself
I will point out that you could argue that Nintendo wasn't 'ready' for the next generation after relatively failing to get a good market share with the Gamcube, and then releasing a low spec system compared to its competitors (the Wii) but look how that turned out
these things are quite hard to predict because consumers, especially casual gamers, are insanely hard to predict, and when you have a very popular brand like Nintendo its easy to get consumers on board but also easy to lose them as they have such strong nostalgia and expectations
