I don’t think the author understands console cycles. These are decade long cycles. Nintendo released Wii, one of the best selling consoles of all time, in 2006

I don’t think the author understands console cycles. These are decade long cycles. Nintendo released Wii, one of the best selling consoles of all time, in 2006. Then they released the 3DS, another of the best selling consoles of all time, in 2010. Then they released the the Switch, the fastest selling console ever for them, in 2017. This is not a company who is “on the ropes” and then off again. This is a company that is consistently at the absolute top of the charts year after year. You can say the WiiU was a failure, but that risk helped them nail the switch. The only sense in which they were “on the ropes” is that they take risks which don’t work every single time. But that’s an absurd expectation. Of course bets don’t pay off every time. The author is anthropomorphizing the design process. As if failed experiments are some sort of existential moment for the company. But these are just the natural ups and downs of an ambitious design team.