This makes no sense.

The Wii U launched holiday 2012 and had an entire year before the PS4 and Xbox One launched and its sales still dropped dramatically just a few months after launch.  Sure, the PS4 might make it harder for the Wii U to try to make a comeback, but the sales were already gone before the PS4 or Xbox One even came out. 

Also I think the ways Nintendo can make the NX successful are very simple.

Make a console that's powerful, at least more powerful than the PS4. Make it have a similar architecture to the PS5/Xbox Two or whatever to where it's easy for third parties to port games over to the NX. Actually work with 3rd parties and bring back 3rd party support. And most importantly make sure there are no big droughts like the Wii U had during its first year.

A guess actually advertise your console as a new console and not a random add on to your current console. And release said console with a triple AAA 3d Mario and Zelda. And have some heavy 3rd party

Both Wii U / NX will face fierce competition from PS4. Granted Wii U was struggling before PS4 came but the PS4 momentum just buried Wii U. NX will face the same competition Wii U faced but that time PS4 will be in its prime.

By don't repeat Wii U mistakes.

Sticking with the WII U until atleast 2019, and then releasing a console which graphically is on par to the PS5 and NXB. That's the best they can do hardware wise.

Software wise they should first of all get atleast some third part support and release atleast one heavy hitter every three months.

To a certain degree though even if they fail ... so what? I'll enjoy the games. I enjoy the Wii U, even if NX is just a moderate upgrade (2-3x the Wii U) I think that will be quite enough for very pretty, enjoyable games.

Nintendo's had an incredible run in the business and have been doing this since 1983. By the mid/end cycle that'll have been almost 40 years (!). Ronald Reagen was president when the NES came out, Michael Jackson was still alive (and black), the first Jurassic Park was still 10 years away from being made, the Soviet Union was locked in a cold war with the West, etc. etc.

If they can't make any traction in the business it's because the competition is just too fierce at this point. Nintendo is up against some very big companies, Sony/Playstation looks to have found their groove again, Microsoft is a massive corporation, and on the casual side you have the non-stop assault from Apple and Google/Android.

There's no shame in not being able to be able to beat these corporations. If they go down (as a hardware maker), I hope they go down guns a blazin' though. 

How are they going to, or how should they?

I'll try answering the former with the incomplete amount of info we have. Brand saturation. I think that the NX will be fine hardware wise, but I think what Nintendo is truly ramping up to do is make their brand relevant and mainstream again. Not Mario. Not Pokemon. Nintendo.

They are going to start with the mobile games and the most important bit, which is the new membership program. They are going to use both in tandem with one another to rapidly spread brand awareness and get as many people signed up as possible to the program through the initial game.

I think they'll announce more media partnerships down the road, including a television show/feature film. Those will also try and connect people to the new membership program. By this time next year, the momentum will already have shifted in Nintendo's favor as most of these announcements will be made including the NX and Nintendo's mobile games successful.

The NX will be advertised heavily in tandem with the new membership program, the one of which tens of millions of people will be apart of. The mobile game will be a fad, definitely, but a much more organized and controlled fad than what the Wii was, and with longer legs.

Once people are acclimated to the new Nintendo ecosystem, they will be introduced to the NX. Just by pure brand exposure, it will launch successfully. That's never been the issue. The longevity will come from how good the tech is, which is up in the air, how good the UI experience is, which I think will be Nintendo's best work yet and something honestly revolutionary for the industry, and how integrated it is to the membership program, which is obviously the primary point of it.

And obviously the games. But I really think the most important thing to the NX's success will be it's firmware. The NX will live or die by how well it connects, from launch, to everything. At launch, it needs to have seamless and innovative connections to mobile through the membership program. At launch, it needs to have perfect integration between the NX and NXDS, even if that means delaying one of them behind the scenes.

People don't want to hear it, or at least they like to underplay it, but that dichotomy between playing all your console games on the go and then seamlessly at home is what will send NXs flying off shelves, but it has to be perfect at launch. If someone wants to just own the NXDS and that's it, 95% of those games all need to be playable there without a hitch. If someone owns both, they need to be able to seamlessly interchange between both.

If I start Zelda U on my NX at home, I need to be able to save, shut it off, take my NX on the train, and continue playing without even thinking about it. If it's not that seamless, at launch, the NX fail.

That means that the NX needs to have perfect cloud support so that cross saves are effortless, the NXDS needs to have a taxed data plan that is "free" to the consumer, the membership program integration needs to be perfect between both devices, and cross-buy needs to be implemented without a hitch. And much more. If it isn't perfect, it will fail. If it is perfect, it will be revolutionary.

I think it's already on the right path in terms of release. 2017 will give the NX the ability to get multiplat games for a few years, instead of one. They just need to capatalize on this by making it x86 architecture. Release with a regular controller, but make the gamepad an option if third parties or Nintendo wants to make a game with it as an option (exclusives). Release bigger titles (such as Fatal Frame and Dragon Quest) without making people have to fill out petitions and start movements on twitter would be a good move too. Advertise with the 16+ fans in mind (you know people with money to buy a console). Have at least 2 or 3 must haves first year (instead of releasing the first one at the end of the second year). Remove the Wii name.

There is honestly a LOT they could do to help their next console, but their biggest focus needs to be killing the droughts. The Wii U wouldn't have sold nearly as badly if their were great games coming every month!

buy one for 599 get one free.