You aren't a privileged Nintendo consumer because you own a Wii U

[Wyrdness]

Soundwave said:

Yeah Tomodachi did well especially in Japan but it's similar to Animal Crossing in some ways. In NA/Europe it did so-so no where close to what like Brain Training did back in the day.

Animal Crossing and Tomodachi did well, specifically in Japan, but I think these were primarily just selling to the core audience Nintendo always had.

Brain Training 3DS, Nintendogs + cats, Nintendo Land, Wii Fit U, Style Savvy, Game & Wario, Sing Party, Mario & Sonic Olympics, were all sales disappointments some them being full on flops. Wii Sports Club also wasn't a big hit.

Nintendo bet hard on that audience coming back for them, when they didn't, they basically knew they were fucked especially with Wii U. 

The mistake was not that they bet on them the mistake was how they bet on them, 3DS for a start was priced well above what any of that crowd were willing to pay, in UK it was 250 quid where as the DS was 140 at launch, 110 quid difference. Then the was the consumer confusion over the name and thirdly they never fully catered and marketed to them like with the DS and 3DS.

Instead Nintendo focused on the core group thinking that by default the blue ocean would follow when it's actually the other way round like Rol pointed out, the core group are the ones who would follow by default as their favourite IPS will be present.