Yup. You can pretty much say Nintendo made a bad call.

Yes.

The "expanded audience" is quite happy with sh*t like Candy Crush for free. Nintendo did have Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and Wii Party U available within the first 12 months, none of those are Nintendo mascot themed. 

Nintendo can't compete against Apple/Google for casuals, why pay $60 for one game, when you can get 50 games on your phone for that? Especially when 4-5 games keep casuals happy as is?

Casuals aren't like hardcore players, they don't need a new game every month, actually they are quite happy with just 4-5 "fun" games that they are "good" at and can burn 15-20 minutes away with. That's all they want. 

Nintendo trying to sell them a $300 console + $60 games to fill their gaming niche when their smartphone that's with them 24/7 does it just as well is Nintendo's problem. There's no market for a casual game console anymore because there's no need for one. Just like no one but your grandparents carry a point and click camera anymore ... there's no need for those when a smartphone takes good pictures. If you need more than that, then people go for the high end DSLR for vacation photos. 

@ Soundwave

They may like Candy Crush for free, but as we've seen many times before, they will Buy games when there is value.

Wii Sports and Wii Fit are sports games, not minigames like Nintendoland, and like I said the Nintendo theme is not something the expanded audience cares for.

Minigames for free have been around forever, its not like they suddenly became super popular, no its the lack of games that the expanded audience wanted that drove them away.

Games aren't the same as cameras, people have had the opportunity to play free games for decades, but they've never displaced paid for games with value.

the Wii U games failed to deliver that value, it had nothing to do with the free games on mobile devices.

Which games will they buy?

Which console casual games have taken off as huge hits in the last 3-4 years? 

What you think is "value" is not the same to a casual player, they want simple games that they can get good at and occupy some of their time. 

You're trying to sell a $60 three course dinner to a person who just wants a $6 hamburger and some fries. It doesn't matter how good your $60 dinner is quality wise, sometimes a person just wants a freaking hamburger and fries and nothing else. 

Smartphones and tablets have dramatically changed the game, there is no need for Nintendo anymore, casuals are overserved (actually) nowadays at a price point Nintendo can't come close to. Mario is nice, but he's not enough. 

If the iPhone and smartphone app infastructure existed as the same way in 2006, IMO the Wii and Wii Sports wouldn't have taken off in nearly the same way, IMO. There was a need for Wii Sports in 2006, because there was no one serving the market for people who wanted to play simple games back then.

But today that barrier has been completely removed and casuals have choices that are far more appealling to them than the business model Nintendo is trying to offer ($200-$300 systems + $40-$60 games). 

All the sports games players aren't casuals. Neither does every CoD player. They are still tons of casual they only buy CoD/sports games, at a rate of 1/2 per year.

The Wii was a very different experience than Smartphones and tablets. The appeal was also different.

Well there wasn't any competetion for the casual dollar/time then either. 

It's like saying the NES dominated, so Nintendo should just do what they did with the NES again ... well ... yeah ok, but there's a lot more competetion today for a conventional console so Nintendo can't do what they did back with the NES. 

What some Nintendo die-hards don't want to admit is the same thing happened for the casual audience. Other options moved in, since the rist of the app ecosystem around late 2009 where Angry Birds released in December 2009 and became the first (of many) smartphone casual phenomenon blockbusters, the appeal of things like Kinect and Wiimote have decreased significantly IMO. 

Wii motion gaming is old hat now, no casual player would brag to his friends that he was "playing some Wii Sports yesterday" ... that's old and outdated today. 

Casual market is a different market too, very trend/fad based, more like the mainstream music industry where something is hot (RED hot) for a period of 2-4 years, then it becomes taboo to like that anymore because it just shows that you're not "hip" to the newer trends. 

Nintendo fans I think have a difficult time accepting this too (then again, they love 30 year old franchises, so its a very alien concept to them). 2006 was a long, long time ago now. 

The other death knell for casual gaming was people getting used to getting games for $1 or even free. Now trying to convince them to pay full price for a game has become difficult if not down right impossible. It's like asking people to pay $15 for a music CD these days ... good luck. Some people will do it, but too many people have gotten used to getting music for cheaper (or free). 

They're as deep as typical sports games.

Its all about the fact that people love sports games (its how games like Madden are still super popular year after year)

Nintendoland is just minigames, not sports.

As I said, many will love candy crush, but free games have been around forever, it hasn't stopped people from buying pay games with value

Who says there have been good expanded audience games in the past few years?

Actually that's pretty true for everyone, everyone wants games they can play easily and will engross them for a period of time, its not just a "casual" demand

Sometimes they do, but most will still go out and seek the $60 meal if its so delicious that its worth $60, the key is giving the value. (People eat the cheap meal because it gives a value for its low price, if they can get value that compares to the price for the higher priced meal they will eat it, maybe not as often, maybe once or twice a month as compared to once or twice a week for the cheap meal, but they will still seek it out)

Bad Mario games are not enough you are correct, thing is its been a long while since Nintendo released a quality Mario  game (back in the SNES era)

Nope, the Wii delivered value, the games Wii Sports & Wii Fit were somethings that engaged people, thing is, no system has found the next Wii Sports or Wii Fit.

As I said, if you don't satisfy the value demands of the expanded audience, they won't buy.

Expanded Audience gamers are not stupid, they won't buy crap, they demand value.  In many ways they are more discerning than core gamers, who will buy anything that gets good reviews, expanded audience gamers care little about media reviews.

Its not price that is the barrier, its the failure to deliver quality, even Miyamoto admitted he hasn't been delivering the quality that the expanded audience wants when he said that:

"Their attitude is, 'okay, I am the customer. You are supposed to entertain me.' It's kind of a passive attitude they're taking, and to me it's kind of a pathetic thing."

He wants to make games that appeals to him, not games that give value to the expanded audience, this is why they have failed to retain the expanded audience, not because of the rise of tablet and mobile games.