Nintendo has once again bounced back to relevancy, the Nintendo Switch has been selling on levels rivaling and even surpassing the Wii, and a solid and consistent line up of first and third party releases keeps the system in at least some level of gaming discussion. But there was a time where for all intents and purposes, Nintendo may as well not have even existed. Those years were 2015 and 2016. Let's set the scene here. The writing was on the wall for the Wii U, by this point it was clear this Frankenstein mess of a console was a flop, it's failure costed Nintendo millions in financial losses, and with little to no third party support, and slow first party lineup, it suffered a form obscene software droughts, where the console often went months without a single noteworthy release. Meanwhile, the Nintendo 3DS was keeping the company afloat with its solid performance, but just barely, as it was also under attack by the popularity of mobile games.

2015 in particular was a painful year for Nintendo. Smash for Wii U bought the system a little more time on the market, but it was clear the console wasn't useful for much else. On the opposite side of the spectrum, 8th gen consoles were actually starting to pick up steam. The PS4 got its first big must-have exclusive with FromSoftware's BloodBorne, which rivaled DarkSouls in both sales and critical reception. The Witcher III released to Rave reviews and showed exactly what 8th gen can do for open world games. Sony's E3 conference was a cornucopia of Nostalgia with the announcement of a Shenmue III Kickstarter, and a remake of Final Fantasy VII, plus the announcement of Project Morpheus, later PlaySation VR as one of the first major forays into the VR market. Meanwhile new management at Microsoft's Xbox started to change course to a more gamer friendly direction with Xbox 360 Backwards compatibility, and a bigger focus on securing indie titles. And what did Nintendo bring to E3 that year? Puppets, a bland, slow-paced Star Fox with a gimmicky dual screen setup, Skylanders toys, more amiibo, games we've already seen a million times, A Mario Tennis with nothing to do in it, and a Handheld Metroid Prime spin-off nobody asked for. Nintendo also saw the popularity of the Let's Play fad on YouTube, and decided to cash in, in the most haphazard way possible with it's Creator's Program. A limited, rushed-out-the door mess of an MCN that showed Nintendo had no understanding of YouTube or the Gaming Community at the time. 2015, was a mess to say the least, but there were a few bright spots. Splatoon, a little shooter from the Animal Crossing team, became their most successful original game since Wii Sports, and gave the Wii U a little more time on the Market. Super Mario Maker proved to be a powerful creation tool for Mario fans. Nintendo's announcement of Mobile games and the then code-named NX, gave fans some hope for the future. And tragically at least, the death of the Late Satoru Iwata was met with a large mourning and a heartfelt goodbye at The Game Awards that year.

2016 was basically when Nintendo gave up. Star Fox Zero released after missing its Holiday 2015 launch to mediocre reviews, Tokyo Mirage Sessions was a censored, niche, mess of a crossover that had almost nothing to do with Fire Emblem or SMT. And basically the Wii U was all but discontinued in terms of Nintendo's support for the platform. Instead the Nintendo 3DS was tasked with keeping fans busy that year as the new NX console was still another year out. The little handheld that could did its best to make up for a mostly non-existent Wii U that year with the good, but divisive, Fire Emblem Fates, an excellent Kirby title, Metroid Prime Federation Force, which while not great, turned out better than what was originally expected, along with a port of Super Mario Maker and the newest Pokemon generation, Sun and Moon. Meanwhile, 8th gen consoles were now fully in the spotlight. Most developers finally moved on from 7th gen hardware by that point, and 2016 saw some important releases like Doom 2016, and Final Fantasy XV, which ended up being a rather divisive game. Sony once again blew everyone away with its E3 presentation showcasing the first reveals of God of War, Spider-Man, Crash N' Sane Trilogy, and a release window for Horizon Zero Dawn. It's safe to say that Sony showed everyone the PS4 was in full beast mode by that point. Microsoft also put a big focus on expanding the Xbox Brand with it's Play Anywhere initiative that married the Xbox One, with the gaming capabilities of Windows 10. Nintendo decided to forgo a full-fledged E3 showing that year to focus on one game, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. After seeing a number of delays, the borderline reboot of the Zelda series was the one game that stole the show at E3 with its sheer scope alone. The NX was still not quite ready for prime-time, and nobody wanted to watch an E3 Direct with just 3DS games, so making that year "Zelda-Palooza" was in retrospect, the best thing Nintendo could've done at the time. While not as much of a disaster as 2015 was for Nintendo, 2016 was still a largely uneventful year for them. If it wasn't for Zelda and the reveal of the Switch, they may as well not have existed by that point.

It's hard to think of a year more depressing as a Nintendo fan than these 2. This was the period where Nintendo was the most lackadaisical, directionless, and just plain tone deaf. Nobody wanted a Wii U, nobody even knew what it was. The other two console were just getting good, and Nintendo's system was on its final gasp of air. Nintendo hardly did anything to keep the system in the public eye, and when they did, it was usually controversial. It reminds me of Sega during the final years of the Saturn. Things are much greener now with the Switch, and a more focused and competent Nintendo, but its hard for Nintendo fans to forget the dark days of 2015 and 2016.

I don't know if it's worse but at the end of the N64, GameCube, and Wii console lives, it felt like Nintendo had just given up then, too. It's like a pattern where they start strong with all of this promise and then there's a period where the home console is just left to die a premature and horrible death.

Thank God for portable consoles, I guess.

I'd say the Wii U was worse, at least with those consoles, they had a multiple good-great years for a while before being left for dead. The Wii U was worse because 2014 was its only really good year, and even then it wasn't that great compared to even the Switch's weakest year so far, 2018 which still beats all 4 Wii U years combined. Third party support was rock bottom for the Wii U, so it just made the lack of solid Nintendo titles for months on end more painful.

No, in retrospect both the WiiU and 3DS was duds when all is said and done, despite having some good games along the way.

I'm thinking about 3DS-game i liked and between A Link Between Worlds and Metroid Samus Returns i can't think of any. There probably were something, but it must have been completely forgettable

I terms of the 3DS, I'd say Nintendo also made the mistake of assuming third parties and developers will blindly trust them with the 3DS because of its predecessor's pedigree, so they decided to cut corners on Launch titles, so that third parties can take the spotlight. But when it became apparent that third parties didn't have much ready either due to them still supporting the DS, the bigger titles not being ready yet, or skepticism of the system versus the PlayStation Vita, Nintendo scrambled to try and clean up the mess they created with their naive assumption. I once heard that Retro Studios was only brought in for Mario Kart 7 just to get the game out in time for the Holiday season.

This mistake would be repeated with the Wii U as Nintendo just assumed the Wii's brand recognition, and increased power would mean the third parties would just crawl to their side en mass. But when the reality of the Wii U became apparent, Nintendo was caught with their pants down, and lost a ton of money on just trying to keep the system afloat as Third parties began packing their bags for the real next gen consoles.

Because of their unified software teams due to unified hardware, we may finally be over that pattern. I think Nintendo was just stretched two thin having to make twice as many games. I suspect Switch will have plenty of games at the end and there will still be a bunch for the Switch 2.

N64 and Gamecube eras were significantly worse, IMO, because it was like one decade long drought. Wii U was a much shorter dark age.

During the N64 and Gamecube era it wasn’t a situation like on the Wii or Switch where “there’s no games this month,” but in fact there were 30-60 games that month, just nothing 5-star; N64 and Gamecube had months where there were literally NO new games released. I don’t recall the Wii U having this issue, there were always new games each week.

Another couple of issues. With a few exceptions like Donkey Kong 64, Zelda 64, and Ogre Battle 64: N64 games were generally really short and really expensive. Gamecube had the lowest number of exclusives on a Nintendo home console, ever, and just about all the rest were uninspired and lacklustre PS2 ports, usually with missing content or functionality.

I'll nominate 1945.

Nintendo really screwed up the 3DS's launch, but they were able to get away with it thanks to Sony making an even bigger mess of the Vita, and Nintendo managing to get a couple of killer apps (Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land) out before the Vita even launched.

They were clearly relying on the same thing happening with the Wii U, but this time around Sony absolutely hit it out of the park with the PS4, and even the Xbox One was salvageable once Microsoft ditched Kinect and cut the price. It kinda says everything that even in 2014, when the Wii U hit its peak and the Xbox One was floundering, the One still outsold the Wii U every single week of that year.

Financially maybe.

Games-wise each year has at least something to it. 2011 had bad droughts for both the aging Wii and the just-launched 3DS, but it still had a great new Zelda, the North American release of Xenoblade, the 3D remake of Ocarina, and the 1-2 punch of Mario 3d Land and MK7. 2012 saw the 3DS hit its stride and begin releasing great game after great game. 2015 saw Xenoblade X, Splatoon, Mario Maker on the Wii U while the 3DS continued to hit it out of the park.