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Soundwave on 18 July 2019
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Jumpin said:
Soundwave said:

Things can change in a hurry, Wii went from a top brand to a brand that was fizzling out in about 2 years flat. 

Nintendo systems often look strong in year 3 ... by year 4/5 it can quickly be a different story. 

The only post SNES Nintendo system that "finished strong" in a full life cycle has been the DS, everything else they seem to run into real problems by after the 3rd anniversary of launch. 

That's false.
The Wii sold 25.95 million units during its 3rd year 20.53 million in its 4th year on the market, 15.08 million in year 5. All years above the peak performance of the competition (14.3M by PS3 in fy2011), and only in the 6th year did it fall below: but at 9.84 million it was still strongly competing with the now matured ugly duckling PS3 console, and it was only in 2013 (year 7) that the Wii fell significantly below PS3 in sales (3.98m vs 8.4m) Hardly the drop from being a top brand in 2 years flat you claimed. It should also be noted that PS3 sales fizzled in year 8 (2014); not a significantly longer period of success.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/227012/lifetime-unit-sales-of-nintendos-home-consoles/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/651584/global-ps3-console-unit-sales/

The SNES peaked in its second year (with the exception of Japan) http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/reply.php?id=240588&quote=9035461

The only reason the NES "finished strong" is because of its staggered launch: while launching in 1983, it was still launching in certain cities for the first time as late as 1993 in Europe (1991 in the West). It would be dishonest to say the NES had a "strong finish" when in many places it didn't even start the race until the very end.

Dropping by 5 million a year every year for three years is a fairly negative trend even if the peak was quite high, that indicated Wii peaked and then started a downward trajectory which eventually led to the brand completely falling apart and having dropped off dramatically by 2011. 

NES had a staggered launch sure, but Nintendo wasn't like forced to release a new game every month for it towards the end, in 1989 and 1990 they basically just held Super Mario 3 off and it didn't really make any difference because they could afford to not have to carry the platform so much on their own shoulders in those days.