It's not just console gaming, it's gaming in general. 3DS is down 50% on last year. New games always are having soft launches except if they're Pokémon, Monster Hunter or Youkai Watch.
We have similar things in the west. Xbox One and PS4 are not doing well in comparison to how their predecessors did. People only think the PS4 is doing amazing because it had a great launch and thus has higher numbers, but month on month, it's not doing amazingly at all. When the PS3 was doing similar numbers, not long after its launch, people were worried and saying Sony messed up. Wii U is flailing and the Xbox One is doing worse practically every month than the 360 ever did in the same month throughout its life.
Games are having soft launches too, unless they're the massively hyped AAA games, and those are even getting lower ratings critically now. Hell, the new CoD's pre-orders are down 50% on last year.
Even indie companies are suffering. Saw one the other day comment how sales aren't good because people are holding off to see if it will be on PS+.
There's something wrong going on in the industy and I truly believe we're heading for a crash