You got me there. But a fumbling system will have the higher risk of pissing people off. I didn't buy a DS till DS lite. A lot of people ignored the DS till the revision.

Well, chances are that if you are cutting a system's lifespan short by a considerable time period, there's going to be more of the market that you aren't pissing off. Although at the same time, you aren't going to win over that market if you make a reputation out of it, Nintendo have (arguably) only done this with the Virtual Boy and GBA Micro, very sporadic occurrences, which quite frankly takesa lot of prompting to make people remember those things in the first place.

And to be fair, the DS Lite coincided perfectly with NSMB. It was basically a whole different system looking from the outside in for a lot of people.

Then you could argue the DS Lite was the real start of the system. I know that's dumb though lol. If Wii U is ended in 2016. I might buy the next system right there. But They gotta show me something that is actually useful in all regards. The Wii U tablet, to me is the Wii Remote speaker on that.

Because the DS sold more copies.

I highly doubt that releasing a new console every 7 years and 6 years (respectively) is considered "fast".

DS (2004) + 7 years= 3DS (2011)

Wii (2006) + 6 years = wii u (2012)

The shortest life-cycle for a Nintendo console before its succesor was released was 4 years which was the Gamecube.

3DS is selling as well as PS4, so why only 3DS being said to be selling poorly?

It's said because of many Nintendo fans' expectations. I was ripped last year by multiple Ninty fans when I said it wouldn't sell as much as the DS. I noticed it on other memebers too. Henceforth, some people say it's doing bad because it's tracking below the predecessor.

Personally, I think it's doing well. Just because it's selling less doesn't mean it failed.

Considering the PS4's price and each games price, you'd suspect that the 3DS would be doing exceptionally better...right?

OT:

The 3DS is selling poorly despite so many things it has in its corner.  Nintendo's first party titles, the large 3rd party titles, the majority of 3rd party exclusives, price point, lackluster competetion, head start I mean the list goes on.  It should be doing better with the available resources it has.

Lol, seeing videos about that and reading about that event, I always think to myself if the people working at Sega were under some type of drug.

But it isn't selling as well as the PS4. if you align launches or compare week to week sales.