Well one of reasons why Wii U failed is 3DS, after not so good 3DS launch they moved their all strength in order to save it, thats why had one fast price cut na couple of big hits just around 6 months after launch. Problem is that they were saving 3DS in same time when they were preparing Wii U launch, basically in one moment they moved almost all their resources from Wii U and they had whole focus on 3DS in order to save it. Nintendo managed to save 3DS but Wii U beacuse of that suffer greatly. Thats one of reason why they right after Wii U launch in January talked about plans for unifed platform.

There was no real chance to change the Wii U's course. When the 3DS did badly early on, its weekly sales were higher than the Wii U's during its good times, and that makes a significant difference when it comes to price cuts. When the price is cut, a company has to expect that the loss it takes in the short term will pay off eventually. The 3DS didn't make much money in its lifetime despite its hardware and software sales, so the result for a hypothetical Wii U price cut may very well have been negative. Consider the bad outlook for software releases for the Wii U in 2014, there wasn't any reason to believe that a lot of software would be sold to make up for the losses that would come with a hypothetical price cut.

Maintaining the number 2 spot in the console race was an impossibility because Microsoft could also slash the price of their hardware and, unlike Nintendo, they wouldn't have to go through prolonged software droughts. With the Wii U, Nintendo's choice came down to acting aggressive, selling more hardware and taking bigger losses on the whole endeavor versus acceptance of the failure and damage control.

You can argue that Nintendo should have made more and better bundles for the Wii U, but ultimately the Wii U could never be corrected like the 3DS. It also helped the 3DS that its only competitor was the pathetic Vita. Meanwhile, the Wii U's competition was and is a lot more fierce. Price cuts would have probably followed the path of the GameCube. It didn't pay off back then and it's very likely that Nintendo remembered that when they considered the options for the Wii U.

The interesting thing is that in the same time frame. there were 680k gba units shipped down from 980k of last year! So 3ds reduced the  gap by 600k units... Still is fairly behind it  mosty due to the Americas but it's good to see the difference being rebated!

3DS shows way better legs than gba...Exciting!

I think Nintendo overshipped for this quarter. Don't know why... but i think so, since i can't see EU numbers massive up YOY.

That's somewhat true but the reality is that they had numerous opportunities to improve the Wii U's fortunes after the 3DS was all set. 2014 was the biggest one.  Nintendo had everything that could go right go right for them:  the Big 3 of the 3rd parties all disappointed in their launch state (Titanfall, Watch Dogs, and Destiny) thus derailing a lot of hype trains, Mario Kart 8 was a great success and caused sales to surge and keep them ahead of Xbone for the entire summer, Halo 5 and Uncharted 4 both turned out to miss 2014 and land in later dates, and they had two Game of the Year contenders as exclusives in the last third of the year.  There was no excuse - NO excuse - for Nintendo to not maintain the number 2 spot in the console race and have a hugely successful holiday.  But they then went and did almost everything possible to completely screw it up.  Hyrule Warriors and Bayonetta 2 got only limited marketing and no bundles of any kind, limited or otherwise.  Smash didn't get a bundle, limited or otherwise.  Mario Kart 8 didn't even get a wide spread bundle for the holidays.  Their only widespread bundle was the Super Mario 3D World bundle - a game that was a year old, with all hype long dead.  The Wii U didn't get a price cut, didn't get a temporary price reduction, there weren't even any exceptional black friday deals.  And to top it all off, no system focused ads to play up the backlog.  Nintendo had a chance in 2014 to change the Wii U's course and right the ship and they completely and utterly failed.  

There was no real chance to change the Wii U's course. When the 3DS did badly early on, its weekly sales were higher than the Wii U's during its good times, and that makes a significant difference when it comes to price cuts. When the price is cut, a company has to expect that the loss it takes in the short term will pay off eventually. The 3DS didn't make much money in its lifetime despite its hardware and software sales, so the result for a hypothetical Wii U price cut may very well have been negative. Consider the bad outlook for software releases for the Wii U in 2014, there wasn't any reason to believe that a lot of software would be sold to make up for the losses that would come with a hypothetical price cut.

Maintaining the number 2 spot in the console race was an impossibility because Microsoft could also slash the price of their hardware and, unlike Nintendo, they wouldn't have to go through prolonged software droughts. With the Wii U, Nintendo's choice came down to acting aggressive, selling more hardware and taking bigger losses on the whole endeavor versus acceptance of the failure and damage control.

You can argue that Nintendo should have made more and better bundles for the Wii U, but ultimately the Wii U could never be corrected like the 3DS. It also helped the 3DS that its only competitor was the pathetic Vita. Meanwhile, the Wii U's competition was and is a lot more fierce. Price cuts would have probably followed the path of the GameCube. It didn't pay off back then and it's very likely that Nintendo remembered that when they considered the options for the Wii U.

You know, it is insane  - INSANE - to look at the Wii U and 3DS side by side and see how radically different Nintendo's handling has been on these systems.  Everything they got right with the 3DS, they got wrong with the Wii U. 

The 3DS has had pricecuts and good sales at opportune moments, the Wii U has not. 

Nintendo recognized consistently when price became a major obstacle for the 3DS and adjusted accordingly.  With the Wii U, they did not. 

Special editions consoles and game bundles have been common and well executed for the 3DS.  The Wii U's bundles are usually of games years old, ill timed, and there's only been ONE special edition console the entire time. 

The 3DS has had good ads on numerous stations for big games like Pokemon, Smash, etc.  The Wii U's only had 3 games with prolific advertisement (though they have stepped up advertising since 2014, just not on nearly enough stations). 

The 3DS has had SYSTEM focused ads that show all the advantages of the backlog, usually multiple ones running at key seasons.  The Wii U didn't have a single system focused, backlog-highlighting ad in 2014 - a year where they had lots of positivity and the three top-rated big exclusives (two of which were GOTY nominees), their 2013 ones were absolutely horrible, and they didn't have another one until holiday 2015 which was decent. 

Nintendo has used their relationships with many companies to great effect on the 3DS to encourage or lock down games like the Bravely series, Monster Hunter, Etrian Odyssey, big and small games alike.  On the Wii U, they have done this *to a degree* but not nearly on the level or with the consistence of the 3DS. 

And lastly, the 3DS has had a consistent, confident image from launch to now.  The Wii U?  First it was a CORE gamer system, the a casuals system, then they just abandoned all identity and when full on generic for the launch and the first two thirds of 2013, then it was a kids' system, then they finally got something resembling a cohesive, all encompassing identity at 2014's e3 which they still managed to not maintain consistently.  Nintendo's always had a tone of lack of confidence in the Wii U, which is a death sentence for any product.  If you don't have confidence in what you make, why should the consumer?

It's baffling really, the 3DS shows Nintendo does know how to succeed with dedicated hardware.  They just mysteriously forget all that when they work with the Wii U.  Hopefully, they've learned their lesson on some level.