As a hardcore GameCube fan back in the day, I can tell you the late N64 days and most of the Cube days were pretty rough too. Lots of weird, niche stuff, and just felt like Nintendo was still locked in this pointless arms race rather than just making appealing game, though I still liked a lot of the N64/Cube stuff, it was more 2nd and 3rd party titles. 

In terms of both Physical Software and Hardware sales 2016 is the worst year on VGC (data from 2007 onwards). Nintendo really were dying until 2017, they sold less hardware and software every single year for 8 years in a row. If Switch didn't take off they were done.

2015 was the second worst in hardware and the third worst in physical software, (2017 was slightly worse). So yeah I think it's easy to say 2015 and 2016 are Nintendo's worst years in terms of sales.

In terms of game releases that's subjective, but I'm not particularly fond of there game output, though I think a lot of games I didn't like simply because I had to play them on the WiiU.

2008 was the best year for both Hardware and Software.

2016 is probably the all-time worst, but 2011-2012 were pretty rough too.

The Wii's first and third party support were very much dying from 2011 onward, and the 3DS and Wii U had underwhelming launches (to put it politely).

Its a damn shame in the whole lifespan of DS and 3DS they only made ONE singleplayer 2d new Zelda game.

Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks? Not optimal games considering the control-scheme but still 2D

Probably 1993 ... they released Star Fox which was a big deal, but the only other major first party game for the rest of the year was Super Mario All-Stars which is a compilation of older games. Of course, back in those days it didn't matter as much because Nintendo had such great third party support.

I actually didn't think 2015 was that bad at all ... Splatoon (biggest new Nintendo IP in ages), Mario Maker, Xenoblade X, Yoshi's Wooly World. 

2016 was bad but it also contributed to 2017 being so full. 

N64 had Gameboy Color a companion and Gamecube had GBA, is not, financial terms and creative side, worst years, on the portable side. 3DS and Wiiu is the worst generation, creative and financial terms, for Nintendo. Only last 3DS years Nintendo, turn around, in the 3DS side.  

But, Gamecube is a worst stationary console, launched by Nintendo. In good macroeconomic trends, sells only 22 million was a disaster. Wiiu navigates a worst macroeconomic situation.  

Xenoblade X alone made both 2015 and 2016 worth it, I'm sorry for you.

3DS didn't suffer from an attack by mobile games. 3DS was overpriced for what it was, and had a poor launch lineup. Had Nintendo just launched the 3DS as the 2DS XL model for $200, and had something more than OoT Remake for launch it would have achieved 90 million sales lifetime easily. 

MS has been in an even worse downward spiral than Nintendo for years now. 

2015 was decent. It had Xenoblade Chronicles X, Mario Maker, and Splatoon. 

Tokyo Mirage Sessions got great reviews from critics. It wasn't really a Fire Emblem, or a SMT game, but it was a great game. 

Other than those small nitpicks your post was great!

It's hard for me to argue with the feeling in the op. There's correct emphasis of the way the time was being perceived by most gamers. PS4's line up obviously had new 3rd party titles that gamers wanted. Wii U (I hate even saying that name gugh!!) Kicked my ass as a nintendo gamer. I thought I was going to skip the console until my gf convinced me to get it for myself. That's when ZombiU took me in... hook in mouth. Despite financial failure, i fell gaga for it and ended up loosing my interest as a gamer.

Financially 1995 may have looked safe, but I would say these are the years that DoOMed Nintendo's Home Console Brand. I'll give a drunken history: Nintendo and Sony were engaged.. then sony was all like "I wanna make babies on cd with you", and ninty was all "Girl! HELL NO!! I aint never getting married..." .

95 was hyped up to be the transition from "Super" to "Ultra"! Video Game Magazines wrote and spun a million ways about 3D!!1! It was going to blow our minds to play "Better than Arcade Quality" on your very own couch. But when 1995 came there was no new console after all :( Just the same SNES we been playing all our little lives.

"After 19 months of intense development, we have attained our two main goals for Nintendo Ultra 64: to develop a chipset capable of delivering the world's best video game experience, and to do it at a price that can deliver a hardware set below $ 250 retail," said Howard Lincoln, then-chairman of Nintendo of America. "However, we have made a conscious decision not to rush Nintendo Ultra 64 to market. Instead, we've decided to give our software developers additional time to maximize the power of this system in their game creation."

More here: http://www.1up.com/news/day-history-nintendo-64-born

Instead, we got Sony Playstation, Sega Saturn, Windows 95, and Virtual Boy. In no particular order of suckiness. Windows 95 was a sleeper hit with truly amazing experiences only available to the master race. Playstation proved itself instantly as the Simba of the Gaming Jungle. Just that fact you could listen to your music cd on your tv with cool visuals made it the obvious choice for every child and adult in the world. I hated it! It was clearly cooler than anything out there. I was too die hard to leave nintendo for psone.

Nintendo Home Console Brand never recovered from this. The renamed N64, the unusual GC, the shameless Wii, the GUGH!! WiiU, all failed to be "cool". They are so uncool that it's an embarrassment. The consoles are in many ways the best of their generation's, just they all failed to build a long term customer base. Nintendo put a lot of work into disguising this fact, but they have exited the home console race. The switch lite proves that switch is primarily Nintendo's Handheld Brand. To display the game on tv is one of the features we gamers have asked of handheld's since the Gameboy.

And it all started in 1995.