they've become so less 'relevant' to the mainstream that their handheld is the ONLY one that has survived this generation with 60 million sales (the competition being at like 1/5 that).

also literally JUST last generation they were dominant in the home console market. Amiibos selling out everywhere to all kinds of people shows that Nintendo is as relevant as ever, its just the simple fact that the Wii U was marketed terribly and has a giant controller/screen thing that most gamers can't identify with

if Nintendo had released the Wii U with a traditional controller and not named it the Wii U (it had nothing to do with the Wii so the name is absurd) then it would have easily sold 2 or 3x as well as it has

this is coming from a giant Nintendo fan. I don't like the Wii U because of the gamepad and there are a large amount of gamers who feel the same way. it was a very easy thing to fix but Nintendo obviously did what they did

3DS + Wii U and Nintendo is competitive with even Sony in terms of video game hardware sold. the only reason Nintendo did so poorly this generation with the home console is conceptually was a terrible idea

that they 'used' to be. their sales now are similar to that of the Nintendo 64 generation. the reality is that all gaming companies have ups and downs. the only reason their sales are down in general is due to a poorly plan and marketed home console

if the Wii U controller and name had been different it probably would have sold 2 or 3x as well as it has. no one wants the Gamepad unfortunately

again though, things like the Amiibo selling out everywhere indicates that Nintendo is as relevant as ever

It's not just Wii U; 3DS will be their lowest selling portable (unless we count the Virtual Boy) and will sell about half what the DS did.

The N64 was concurrent with the Gameboy, though so was the SNES. If we add Gameboy's sales to either console we land at around 152 - 170 million units. Wii U + 3DS meanwhile will top out at about half that.

Nintendo's sales now are not "similar to the N64" generation, they are the lowest they have ever been since they joined the market in the mid 80s.

this.

the Wii U has been heralded pretty much universally as terribly marketed and conceptually put together badly. If you're not going to go for top of the line graphics then you either need a unique GIMMICK (think Wii with wii motion controls) OR at the very least a traditional format of controller

Nintendo did neither of those. they picked a large expensive controller with a huge screen that the majority of gamers just don't want. Players don't want to stare at their controller and a secondary screen

all Nintendo needs to do is make a more hardcore system that isn't about gimmicks and has regular controllers and the sales will go back to fairly normal

others have made good points though, even adjusted for inflation the Wii U / 3DS are priced MUCH higher than some other generations were. the Gamecube and GBA were at like 100$ and 70$ price points respectively after being out for a few years. the 3DS and Wii U are more than double that

in terms of dollar sales I don't suspect Nintendo is doing that much worse than the N64 / Gamecube eras. Obviously compared to the Wii / DS era (which was a record for combined sales of homeconsole + handheld) it looks bad, but its just not that big of a difference from some other generations in terms of dollar sales

the biggest thing that hurt Nintendo this generation was the development cost of the Wii U versus it performing poorly

they will do fine with the NX, the Wii U is an anamoly due to the poor decisions that have already mentioned many times

are you deliberately being dull or what?

you realize that the Gameboy lasted through MULTIPLE home console generations right? the original Gameboy was being sold from like 1989 until the late 90s.

to compare it to handheld generations that last half of that is just naive.

the only way to comparitvely use the original Gameboy sales with the SNES or N64 hardware sales you would have to cut the Gameboy sales in life half. again, the N64 (and SNES) were not around for large periods of sales time for the original Gameboy. the original Gameboy does not even fit per say into an exact generation as its successor (the Gameboy Color) did not come out until the late 90s

generally you would use Nintendo 64 hardware sales + Gameboy Color Sales as the combined number for that generation, at least thats how people generally look at it

Even if I humour you and we cut Gameboy's sales in half:

1/2 GB + SNES = 110 million

1/2 GB + N64 = 92 million

Wii U + 3DS = 70 million, will likely end up at 80 million.

So even with arbitary rules, this is still their worst generation.

Like I said, a 20% decline can be explained by other reasons than simply "less mainstream"

What did a GC+GBA SP cost in 2003 onward? $200 total, what have the premium 3DS sku+Wii U cost for the majority of this generation? $500. Even adjusted for inflation, that's nearly double the cost to own both pieces of Nintendo hardware. Is a nearly 100% percent mark up on price a potential reason for a 20% decline?

As for marketing, many people initially thought 3DS was nothing more than a redesigned DS with a 3D screen and many people thought Wii U was nothing more than a tablet accessory for Wii, did either GBA or GC suffer from consumer confusion like 3DS/Wii U did?

Causes like price and appeal don't discount the end result though. Ultimately, people will pay higher prices if something is more desirable; PS2 was more expensive than Gamecube but vastly outsold it.

I'm not trying to, that's just what I think. I would be absolutely thrilled to be wrong. However, looking at the sales data again, I'm less sure. It's a little hard to compare sales data for the two games (in support of either of our points) because the first one was so hard to obtain in the US and there is missing data from EU's initial sales.

I just looked at the original's numbers again, and just saw that, in the US, it sold 10k in 2013, 15k in 2014, and 56k in 2015. That's crazy! I didn't even know you could buy a new copy in 2015. I don't know that I've seen that happen before, so clearly its sales aren't following the usual pattern. Sales in Europe seemed to follow the normal curve; in Japan, however, sales fell off a cliff. It did 151k in 2010, 8k in 2011, and 83 total copies in 2012 (nothing after that), so it never even managed to eclipse double its first week sales (82k).

As far as X goes, it is definitely outperforming the original in the west, but not in Japan. First week sales were better by 4k, but sales after 2 weeks were already down by 5k, and by week 10 were down by 17k. Also, EU's numbers for the original are way off, because the first 8 weeks are missing from both Germany and France, and the first week is missing from the UK (at least what I'm looking at right now), so the increase in EU is not nearly as big as it looks. With how strong NA sales have been, it's obviously way ahead globally right now, but I'm not convinced that it will have the staying power of its predecessor. For one thing, the original released in the US in April on a completely dead console, and in the EU in August on a mostly dying console. X released in the holiday season for a console that has as much momentum now as it probably has ever had (however small that is). By all accounts, the story is much weaker, too. Who knows, though. Only time will tell. Like I said, I would love to be wrong.

The PS2 was on average only ~$54 more expensive than the Gamecube throughout it's lifespan.  That's not a huge difference considering it doubled as a DVD player.