I agree that the GC and the Wii both suffered from the major problem of lacking good third party games. I think Rare winding up in bed with MS really crippled the GameCube, as Rare was a very loyal third party developer that was willing to put up with making games on the N64, regardless of its being difficult to make game for. Rare stuck with Nintendo and constantly put out decent games, many of them were pretty childish in the early days, until they decided to prove they had teeth with two finest games released for the 64 in the last years of its life, Perfect Dark and Conker's Bad Fur Day. Had they continued to make games for Nintendo instead of being bought out by MS, I think GC would have held up a bit better.
The statement that Nintendo needs to get over Mario, Zelda, and Metroid is kind of an odd one though. I think Skyjedi said the exact same thing on the last page as well. That is pretty much like saying, Sony needs to get over God of War, Final Fantasy, and Grand Theft Auto. That's crazy! Those games sell and are always sure to be great quality games. Why should any company adandon its most lucrative titles. The fact of the matter is, There are more than twice as many GTA games on the PS2 than there were Metroid games on the GC. Since 2000, there have only been two Zelda titles that were not handheld or spinoff mini-games. Include the handheld titles and the mini-games and you're up to a whopping total of six games spanning four systems. From 1986 until present you have a total of ten Metroid games spanning seven systems (five of those, including one mini-game, are for handheld systems). As for Mario games, there are too many spinoffs for me to count them, but since the days of the N64, there has only been one real Mario game per system. I'll gladly defend the spinoffs, because all systems have them, you have tons of Spiro, Crash, and Sonic spinoffs flooding other consoles, and they are just trying to rip off the Mario games, so obviously they are doing something right with Mario.
Since these three titles always sell really well and are much anticipated everytime a new one is announced, I'd say they far from need to get over them. In fact, I'd argue that they need more of these kinds of games. I'm not saying they should be popping out another sequel for these series every year or so, unless they can do something unique with each one (like how unique, and yet familar Mojora's Mask was compared to Ocarina of Time) so that consumers don't feel like they are playing the same game over and over. But they need more real games. Games someone can pick up and play through by themselves, but bringing new and unique gameplay into the picture via the Wiimote. How great would a new Jedi Knight game be on the Wii, using the Wiimote and the new attachment. That would be something older gamers would get into, drive the value of the system up a bit in the eyes of your average gamer (as opposed to the casual gamers who currently hold the majority of the Wii market share). It is really ashame Wii didn't get Resident Evil 5, as we have seen how great that worked with RE4 on the Wii.
Sure, Nintendo is staying afloat just fine with their newfound audience who suck up the mini-games like there is no tomorrow. But they have pretty much lost those who remained loyal to them over the years. Instead of incorporating their new audience into the mix, they have pretty much left their old audience and started over. Not sure how wise of a move that was.