I more or less have the same harsh level of thinking - like, there had to be a more strategic way to put out their statement which essentially cost them 6 billion.
Nintendo also owns a stake in Creatures iirc. But it is important to mention that these are still separate legal entities, so money transfers between them will be limited.
this shouldn't be surprising to anyone. The game was overhyped beyond craziness. Once people realized how barebones and unoptimized this game was, they are just going to stop playing.