It has gotten so bad that I'm actually contemplating whether or not publishers just want Nintendo out of the console race entirely. If you think about it, of course they would want a Sony and MS world since that's what they are currently living in. Everything will be streamlined to be developed for PC and the PSbone since they are all somewhat similar. 3rd parties always complain that they never get any success on Nintendo's hardware so maybe they have just given up supporting it entirely. Now the discussion of who's to blame for 3rd parties woes on Nintendo hardware is something best left for another thread but particularly with the WiiU, I think 3rd parties are to blame. Very few provided any support upon release or after. Ubisoft is the only company that put up a decent effort, everyone else released old "updates" or nothing at all. Some (EA and now SquareEnix) have gone and even sabotaged their own releases (Mass Effect 3 announced for WiiU and a trilogy for all others soon after, Dues Ex no longer WiiU exclusive)
I think its the market's focus on AAA release that has hurt Nintendo and 3rd parties on their hardware. Publishers seem to only be looking at AAA releases to which is too risky on Nintendo platforms, especially on one just released with a small install base. I don't see how these publishers can't from small groups to make A or AA games on a smaller budget and release them on the WiiU. There are absolutely no games coming out so if anything with any kind of effort was released, people might just go and buy it. People did buy a WiiU to play it, so give them things to play. They can even use these smaller budget releases to introduce new IPs at a lower risk. If they catch on and become established then there they go, they have themselves a new franchise. I honestly thought the Japanese developers would be at least giving the WiiU a shot as they often don't put out AAA games yet I don't see anything.
Something more than bad WiiU sales must be going on with these publishers and Nintendo. Games coming out now are games that should've been green lit around 2 years ago at the minimum. At that time, Nintendo was coming off the Wii which sold well and no one had any idea the WiiU would be struggling this bad at this point so what excuse did they have back then to not get something in development.
3rd parties always complain that their games don't sell well against Nintendo's but at the moment, they have no competition what so ever from Nintendo software as Nintendo isn't releasing much. This is the time for 3rd parties to make their money, not later on when every Nintendo fan has picked up the WiiU specifically for Nintendo's games. The market by then will only be for Nintendo games. I've always had a belief that Nintendo hardware is sold to Nintendo fanboys who only game Nintendo and hardcore gamers who love Nintendo games but also have one, if not more, (or a PC) of the competitors systems. With this setting, the Nintendo fanboys won't purchase non Nintendo games and the hardcore gamers will more than likely pick up multiplatform releases on the other guys systems as apposed to their WiiU.
How the hell can Nintendo fix that? Nintendo can only do so much, can only control themselves and they are struggling with that as it is.
Honestly, to answer my own thread title, I think Nintendo has spread themselves too thin between supporting the 3ds and the WiiU which it seems they have underestimated the difficulty of transitioning to the HD generation. Nintendo should get the brunt of the blame as this is their system and they should've had their situation on lock but 3rd party publishers have no one to blame but themselves.
For all you Game of Thrones fans, this situation reminds me of the Red Wedding and Nintendo is Robb Stark. Nintendo is in a vulnerable position and the publishers seem to be looking to take advantage of it in a negative way. You can even say EA are the Lannisters.