They had no killer apps and did really bad promotion for the system when it came out. You can sell a system out of hype alone but Nintendo's marketing was terrible. Now the sales, as far as I know, have picked up. The system was sold out on the gamestop website for some days and is now back in stock which means they should be moving units once again.
I do not see a comeback as impossible seeing how they are going to be releasing five major titles next year. They have what it takes to make that comeback but I hope their marketing dept. does a hell of a lot better.
http://myvideogamenews.com/2013/11/2...-gamestop-com/
When this news came out I checked gamestop.com and verified it was indeed true.