Wii U easily. 13 million consoles. 3DS sold half of the DS.  Honestly, its library is severely lacking compared to DS. Wii U had some good stuff but it was long droughts. Little that would sell big numbers.  Poor hardware and their worst marketing job since toenails in a jar/exploding vomiting men in the 90s in Magazine ads and TV. At least the gross stuff fits in line with the 90s as SEGA, Nickelodeon, and plenty more doing similar things. Dumbass kids telling their parents they need a Wii U was the lamest most conservative white 50-year-old man exec idea ever.

Even tho Nintendo was financially just fine with Wii U's failure. Market share and consumer trust. Nintendo could not survive another Wii U disaster. They were still ok after N64. Shaky but ok. Gamecube era still had GBA doing great numbers. GBA would have crossed 100 million had DS not come out so early. 3DS outstayed its welcome and didn't even outsell PSP or GBA.  3DS kept Nintendo stable but it wasn't doing amazing like Game Boy or GBA in their era.

Nintendo could have survived a second WiiU disaster, they have a sizable war chest in cash reserves... And they were being extremely successful on mobile phones  which they have now seemed to have abandoned.

Plus they were making coin with the NES and SNES classics as well.

I'm not talking about financials. With consumer trust and market share they could not survive a second Wii U. They're not making shelf space in retail space for shit that doesn't sell. SEGA was pushed aside. Vita games vanished from retailers years before it was discontinued. Stores were removing Wii U sections.

I think we're seeing this with the Xbox line. After what MS tried to pull with the Xbone (no used games, console must be online, forced Kinect 2), it handed Sony the generation and will never recover unless Sony makes similarly horrible decisions with a future console. The only reason the Xbox has survived this long is because it's from Microsoft.

Definitely the Wii U & 3DS era. Lowest sales and honestly the general public just didn't seem to care about Nintendo. At least the GCN era had the GBA to back it up. If the GBA lasted as long as the 3DS did, it would have sold a lot more and made that era look better for Nintendo. Wii U & 3DS era is also the only era in Nintendo's gaming history were they actually had FYs where they lost money.

It wouldn't be that hard to go back and find all of the Nintendoomed threads on here from 2010-early 2017.

yip

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/218973/so-nintendo-should-go-3rd-party-right-what-about-everyone-else/1/

It's tough to decide between the GBA/GCN era, and the 3DS/Wii U era. The Nintendo GameCube struggled to stand out in a now crowded console market with the dominant PlayStation 2 and savvy newcomer Xbox, but at the very least, the Game Boy Advance was a white hot platform to keep them afloat. The Wii U on the other hand, just felt like it had no purpose to a lot of people.

* An HD system that wasn't going to be as powerful or easy to develop for as the upcoming PlayStation 4 or Xbox One.
* A bizarre name and marketing strategy that didn't make it clear it was a new system.
* A giant tablet controller that even Nintendo couldn't find any practical use for through most of its life.
* A severe post launch drought that didn't end until August.
* Crappy versions of multi-platform games with missing features and worse performance

It was all a storm of bad decisions and poor planning. And unlike the GCN days, things weren't sunshine and rainbows on the handheld side either. The 3DS suffered a subpar launch with a high price that only recovered after a drastic price drop. And even then, it took Nintendo several years to turn it into a truly relevant platform after various re-designs, third party deals, and exclusive game releases in an era when Smartphone gaming was at its peak.

I have to agree. GCN was coming off of a console that was successful but a financial disappointment to Nintendo. Wii U came off of Nintendo's most successful home console to date (the same generation they had their most successful platform overall, DS). GBA would've cracked 100 million had DS flopped out the gate or not released until early 2006 or later. 

3DS and Wii U led to losses and were embarrassments in sales (namely Wii U) compared to their immediate predecessors. GBA and GCN didn't lose money any year when combined and GameCube might not have lost money at all on its own.

Everyone says Wii U/3DS era.

But 3DS was still going strong with all its iterations and while the Wii U was not doing so great,nots games still did well with sales totals. Plus add in the Wii still selling games deep into, if not after the Wii U and you have another plus there.

I mean, you could almost says even the Switch era was not that great. No home console, just a handheld/home console hybrid, so one system.

Obviously that is an extreme outlook, switch has done Great, but still throwing it out there.
GameCube/Advance era was pretty sluggish as well. Then we have the SNES/virtual boy era? I think the game boy launched during the NES time fre did it not?

I am just biased though, I loved the Wii U. But it...it is probably the answer. :_(