It holds up when that business falls off a cliff after 3 or 4 years and carries over to the start of the next product. Marketing solely around a gimmick can bring great success, or mediocrity. An expensive gamble that works for Nintendo even when it fails due to the strength of first party software.
I don't know what point you're trying to make here.
I know people like to try and paint the Wii as some one off fad that Nintendo got lucky with, but all actual evidence points to the opposite; it was popular in untapped markets, it was marketed at people who chose to buy it, and it outsold the competition for a number of years.
That's the opposite of a fad, that is a considered and successful execution of a business strategy.
The fact Iwata successfully did this
twice, once with the DS and once with the WiiU would suggest that he does - in fact - know what the fuck he is doing.
Your use of the word 'gimmick' - presumably talking about the WiiU controller - shows where Nintendo are failing (and where other gamers who should be the WiiUs target audience using this word reinforce this supposition); it is not a 'gimmick', it is a logical extension of the controller using tech not cheap enough to consider until now.
Now maybe this is Nintendos probblem with marketing, or maybe this is their competition using their well paid and well placed media strategies to shit up Nintendo ("Hey remember wagglelol? ITS LIKE THAT TROLLOLOLOLO") but the WiiU controller is a thing that should be self evidently an improvement for gamers, offering access to titles on console they have previously been denied.
Nintendo need to fix
that first and foremost; it is not a 'gimmick'.
