It could happen, but Sony also fucked up the launch of the PS3 as well. If they get their initial message correct, it would hard for Nintendo to beat them.

in extension to my last post, as an example I absolutely LOVE Twilight Princess on the Gamecube but hated it on the Wii U. gimmicky controllers and features do not enhance a game necessarily, they often detract from it and distract the player (at least in my experience)

that said I'm sure Nintendo will figure out a winning formula and get back on top. too strong IPs for it not to happen

Do they really need to? They are profitable and that's all that matters. Sony is in the middle of imploding overall and MS investors are having arguments amongst themselves about spinning off the Xbox brand. Maybe PlayStation can survive on its own, but Xbox would probably collapse. Nintendo is the only one of the 3 that is standing on its own without government bailouts and the backing of a giant corporation.

I think its hilarious that you use the Gamecube as an example for failure. The Gamecube actually was fantastic for its time, extremely aggressive in terms of specs (far superior to the PS2), fantastic controller, great game library (well Nintendo IP wise, obviously since the N64 era it was difficult with the 3rd parties). the only weakness it truly had was the fact that the disks were mini to combat pirating and becase of that hard to design for and resulting in 3rd parties continued reluctance to work with Nintendo

there was nothing that was 'fixed' from the Gamecube to Wii, they are extremely polar oppisites in terms of both there objective in the gaming world, their design, there risk factor. 

Going back to a Gamecube-esque system would be intelligent, obviously this time they would just need to adopt the standard disk format and avoid in any extremely awkward complications that come with strange controls and system design

What else could you classify the gamecube as ? A success ? (You'd just hear maniacal laughter from me if I heard that.) 

Nothing was exactly wrong about the console itself. There is an aspect that the WII fixed compared to gamecube and that's having the better games ...

@Bold They already did and it's called the WII U but I'm not so sure that's intelligent seeing how the market is condemning it ... It's controller is a lot more closer to the GC than the WII ...

Everything's possible: next time Ninty could design the right thing and MS and Sony be clumsy again, or even do the right things to but not as good. I just hope none will repeat the same mistakes, but I can see, for example, MS trying to go digital-only too early.

Dont think they can.
I voted if sony go bankrupt, yes, but on second thoughts that would just mean the xbox would get significantly stronger.
Also the day when nintendo make a console powerful enough to get all the same games on a similar level to Sony/MS consoles, more people will still play games like COD, GTA, BF, FIFA, AC and so on, on Sony/Xbox. But then you have to consider what happens to their existing market which relies on price sensitive customers... those wont necessarily pick up a nintendo console anymore. They might not buy a console at all, and if they do they will consider Sony/MS since they will be a similar price.

At the moment, wii U is cheap so many have picked it up as a second console. If it gets more powerful and more expensive, fewer people will be doing that as well. Alternatively, if nintendos system remains cheaper, then it will have the same problem of hardware limitations and developers not bothering with it.

Nevertheless even Nintendo is a small fish in the mobile gaming sector by now. After some great years with the Wii+DS combo (over 600 billion Yen software revenue in 2009), they are again at 200 - 250 billion Yen (~2 billion US$) software revenue per year (home consoles + handhelds together).

For comparison: Apple had over 10 billion US$ app gross revenue last year (main contributer: mobile games) and this volume has grown to over 3 billion US$ per quarter, so this year the app gross revenue should reach 13 - 15 billion US$.

Add the revenue of Google Play and the Amazon AppStore to that, then the people spend 8 - 10 times more money for gaming apps than for handheld games.

And it will only become worse the next years.

Perhaps with a competent marketing team...
Advertising for the Wii was so aggressive (in the US at least)...
It had a great slogan ("Wii would like to play.") and commercials included all ages...
And it wasn't unusual to see Wii commercials on TV...
Now they only occasionally get played on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and the Disney Channel...
It's pretty easy for anyone that doesn't watch cartoons or who isn't a "core" Nintendo fan not know what the Wii U is...

I doubt it. As long as PlayStation is there Nintendo has little chance of winning. If PlayStation goes under its users will migrate to PC and Xbox, so Nintendo won't gain much.