1997 also saw Starfox 64, one of the most beloved games on the system.

Honestly the 90s were the greatest for Nintendo, none of the years were really that bad. I'd say maybe 1999 was the weakest.

Most of their classic games are born from the 90s. It was also when NOA was miles better than they are today.

All the 90s should be exempt, the 90s was a glorious time to be a Nintendo fan, aside from the N64's droughts because of the stupid cartridge format.

Hate to say it, but the Iwata era (everything 2003 onwards) has been worse, aside from being able to brag about Wii/DS sales for a few years, but that really wasn't worth bragging about because none of those gamers stuck around and were largely interested in turds like Carnival Games or Just Dance or Zumba Fitness.

It all looks the same to me, sorry

I'm a Nintendo fan and never feel it's a bad time. I'm genuinely happy and I love my WiiU.

Not a Nintendo "fan" since I switched the first time I got to experience the PS1. Still like them, though. As to your question, nope, this is the worst. At least during the N64 and GameCube days Nintendo still had pretty good 3rd party support and were pumping out classics themselves. Their handhelds were doing extremely well, also, in terms of sales and games. Both Wii U and 3DS have faltered in terms of sales, the Wii U much more so, both becoming Nintendo's worst selling home and handheld consoles. 3rd party support has dried up and Nintendo struggles to pump out games at the same rate as before, usually relying on remasters to see them through droughts. And while some of their games are pretty good, with less than 15M consoles sold, they will just be a footnote, not able to gain the label of classic.

Really, Nintendo seems to be throwing all their eggs into NX, hoping to push sales by combining their home and handheld markets. If this doesn't pan out, they will most likely be switching to 3rd party, like Sega before them.

If you ask a non-loaded version of the question, I'll give an answer to it.

Voted no.

I grew up with Super Mario Bros, Ducktails, and Chip & Dale on NES. I loved my N64 and even the Gamecube before 2005 but I've always been the Wii and DS type of gamer. I vividly remember playing Wario Ware Touched and Nintendogs on DS thinking "wow this is awesome!". The first time I played Wii Sports was magical and I'll never forget that. Gaming has always been a social activity for me. Wii Sports, Pokémon (trading), Mario Kart, Wii Play, Wii Sports Resort, etc. have brought me way more fun than any epic single player adventures.
I will repeat this till the day I die: If Nintendo actually made another Wii they would sell 100m consoles. The people who bought a Wii certainly don't play on smartphones today. That's like saying "Oh people stopped driving BMW, they buy washing machines now".

Right now is the worst time ever to be a Wii / DS kind of Nintendo fan. No new Wii Sports in more than 5 years (and Wii Sports Resort sold like 30m copies before it got bundled with the console) and no mass market, social games in general. 2D Mario is being treated like a second class IP. It's just Mario Kart and Smash but that one's too hardcore for the mass market. So yeah, to me this is the worst time ever to be a Nintendo fan.

I disagree. Not only is the Wii crowd playing smartphone games today, but smartphones have attracted an audience the size of which the Wii or DS could never dream of.

Casual gaming is actually the most over-served portion of the market today, there was another thread here that showed an industry report showing that like 60%+ of the industry now is freemium smartphone/tablet games or free Facebook browser games. This is a huge difference from 2006 when no one was catering towards casuals leaving Nintendo with a huge blue ocean. Today? Casual games have bigger marketing budgets than all console games, with celebrity endorsements, Super Bowl ads, you can't watch TV for 10 minutes without seeing a smartphone game commercial.

The problem with this is they have popularized easy to play/simple gaming for *free*. In essence they poisoned the well for Nintendo's business model of charging at least $20/game.

If Nintendo wants to make some cheap casual console though ... sure why not. Make something for $90 with a cheap ass mobile chip in it, redesigned Wiimote, and sell the games for $5/pop (digital download only) or something and see how it goes. You don't need to have Metroid or Zelda or Xenoblade or things like that on the system since casuals don't play those games anyway.

But things like Wii Sports Club, Wii Fit U, Brain Training 3DS, Nintendo Land, Sing Party, Game & Wario, ... by and large all flopped or dissapointed. I don't know how 2D Mario is ignored when it was the lead software title for the Wii U.

We agree to disagree then! ;)

Smartphone games are nothing like the social experience Nintendo offered with the Wii. I don't want to get into an argument here (I know I'll just get attacked from all sides) but if Nintendo's biggest IP's (2D Mario, Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Mario Kart, etc.) can't stand a chance to gain mass market interest today then it's basically game over for Nintendo as they have become irrelevant in that case. 

Well I mean the Wii U had NSMBU, Sing Party, Nintendo Land, Wii Fit U, Mario & Sonic Olympics, Wii Sports Club within the first 12 months. I guess you could also throw in 3D World because it was obviously heavily tailored to appeal to NSBM casuals.

And it was a disaster.

3DS launch with Nintendogs + cats? Huge disaster. Brain Training? Biggest generation over generation flop we've seen this gen probably.

The need for someone to make simple/easy/friendly games that people who don't like hardcore games is completely unneccessary today. Smartphones and Facebook completely dominate that industry.

Beyond that I think people just tired of flapping their arms around. After a while you do begin to notice that most of the games don't even pick up on your movements properly and walking around the neighborhood for 15 minutes is probably a better excercise routine than 90% of what's in Wii Fit.

It's not just Nintendo that bet hard on motion gaming ... MS made Kinect central to the XBox One too and that basically gave Sony all the ammo they needed to win back the console market.

I like social gaming too, but I prefer things like GoldenEye and Mario Kart that require some actual skill. Playing Wii Sports gets dull after a while because there's no skill involved whatsoever.