It seems the lego, skylanders and minecraft games are appealing better to the demographic that nintendo used to dominate. Which you think would be enough for them to realise it's not good business to focus on a selected audience.

The Wii U could easily run Minecraft

thats just a wasted oppurtunity

Gamepad integrated inventory would be amazing for that game

I've been saying this since the Wii has arrived: throttle back on Mario, Zelda, & Donkey Kong, and Nintendo themselves need to branch out into other genre of games, with their patented flair. I don't have a WiiU and never bought a Wii, but I would EASILY to compliment my PS4/Future Steam Machine if they gave people NINTENDO games, Shigeru Miyamoto-style games, in different genres. As of now, Nintendo is telling me and everyone else who isn't a hardcore fan of Mario, Samus, Link, & Cranky Kong that this isn't the system for you. If SONY gave me NOTHING ELSE BUT Kratos, Uncharted, Sackboy, I honestly couldn't justify the couple of hundred dollar asking price for the system...

You've got some Identity-Recovery to do in the gaming industry since the Wii, Nintendo. Where are the fighters, RPG's, Action-Adventure, Wrestling games? Not inferior multiplats from PS4/Xbox One but NINTENDO games? The rest of the gaming community wants variety, WITHOUT MARIO, from Nintendo. There's too much development talent at Nintendo to live or die at the hands of Princess Toadstool or Diddy Kong. EXPAND, Nintendo...

I think the tough thing is people maybe just don't want multiple consoles.

The Nintendo console has been in decline for a while if we look past the Wii, which seems more like a one-time craze (a well executed one) that can't be repeated easily.

Super NES - 49 million
N64 - 33 million
GCN - 22 million
Wii U - 17-18 million (currently on pace for)

It's a gargantuan task I think to convince people they need two video game boxes under their TV unless you have a killer, killer idea that changes everything about gaming like the Wiimote.

Use facebook and mobile games to advertise their platform. They need 10x more followers on facebook and twitter if they want to sell 2-3x more hardware and games. Minigames are how you drive up that engagement.

License more IPs for ancillary products (example: a Metroid graphic novel or movie)

Cut eShop prices.

Change retail displays to focus less on game cases and more on a display of the console itself.

Get "street teams" out in malls, festivals, and other places to get people to try products hands on.

Get Nintendo's leadership out of the Direct, they're to awkward and don't have a talent for showmanship -- put youtube stars and celebrities in instead so a larger audience is brought in

Micro-grants for Indie exclusive development. "We'll give you 10k right now if this game remains WiiU exclusive" Or "Here's 1k to start just for porting to WiiU".

Set release dates.

Buy more studios to ensure bigger pipeline of games.

Get an exclusive FPS worth writing home about.

Offer discounts for preorders ($10+ discount if you preorder). This ensures more working capital for game development.

License the WiiU OS/brand into smart TV's. Basically WiiU becomes the SmartTV UI and can download and play eShop games. Maybe allow for a disk add-on.

Aside from being overdramatic too, you contradict your first sentence with your second. The Wii wasn't the only exception, nor is it only an exception. The Wii and DS were Nintendo's highest selling home console and handheld console in history. This generation doesn't speak for their next generation of consoles. The Wii and DS are irrefutable proof that all it takes is a single generation to turn things around.

I think this is so true. Rare didn't just shit out pure gold during the N64/GBA years, they did so on a very regular and constant basis. About 3 good-great games a year was the average. Rare's output could really have helped the WiiU's droughts.

Nintendo portables have been selling fairly consistently for the last 15 years, DS peaked higher but the GBC and GBA were all big sellers and while the 3DS is a decline is still holding OK at least. The GBA probably would've hit 120 million or so if its lifecycle was not cut short, it sold at a considerably better rate than the 3DS is (18 million peak year shipment versus 13 million for the 3DS so far). 

If we remove the motion gaming craze of the Wii, its pretty irrefutable that Nintendo consoles are a on a large downward decline though. 

NES (65 mill) - SNES (49 mill) - N64 (33 mill) - GameCube (22 mill) - Wii U (on pace for 16-17 mill) is actually fairly (and alarmingly) consistent. 

Maybe they can come up with another Wiimote like miracle that saves them next hardware cycle, but we've seen this generation that such a strategy can also be incredibly risky ... if the audience doesn't take to your new novelty as well as they did to your past one, you can be totally screwed. Worst of all Nintendo somehow managed to make a controller so expensive this generation that it's even causing them to bleed money.

I don't disagree with your view, but I do disagree with your mode of argument:

Arguments proposing an alternative history like "If Wii didn't have the Wii remote, then...." is not really a good argument,especially if you presume that Nintendo would have simply just released the Wii console with some other type of controller. If the Wii didn't have the Wii remote, Nintendo would have likely released a newer console that was more powerful and earlier to the market. Considering the Xbox 360 success, it is highly probable Nintendo would have been more successful than the Gamecube. 

Also, using an argument that proposes an alternative history would also destroy the initial premise gthat Nintendo is on the decline:

1. If N64 had gone with CDs instead of cartridges, it would have never lost the third party support, including games like FF7. Therefore it would have almost certainly sold better than the SNES and would have easily dominated the generation.

2. If Gamecube hadn't looked like a children's toy and been marketed as PS2 junior, it would have almost certainly sold better than it did. Of course, if the N64 had dominated due to point 1, it is doubtful Nintendo would have ever opted for a more child-oriented strategy with the Gamecube.

Yes, but the Wii is an outlier. Nintendo gambled and it payed off. Not only that but Motion Gaming was tried and had failed in the past there was no way Nintendo could've predicted its success, and they have failed thus far to replicate that in the Wii U, which is otherwise just following the trend.

You can also determine that the difference in the attach rate between the GameCube and the Wii was indicative of a drastic userbase change.

In other words, the only thing we learned from the Wii was that the mainstream casual market is the gold at the end of the rainbow, but fads are as illusive as Leprechauns.