lets see nintendo consoles
nes
snes
n64
gamecube
wii
wii U

and their handhelds
game and watch
gameboy ( original pocket light color advance advance sp and micro )
ds ( orifinal lite dsi XL )
3DS ( original 2DS XL "new" ...noticing a theme here ? )

it was mostly nintendo who screwed the pooch with third party
they were postivley draconian in the nes era and then sega came alongw ith th magdrive and easier alooser lisencing terms and develoeprs flocked to the megadrive

and then nintendo unveiled the snes slower cpu but better colors mode 7 parallax scrolling better music chip and more fair lisencing too so the developers tend to go to the snes too

the real deal breaker were the ps1 and the n64

the ps1 because it sold like gangbusters ( 104 million all told ) and used cd's
cd's were cheap to produce and had a huge amount of storage for developers to indulge in their fmva nd cutscene fetish ..err fascination

nintendo wanted the n64 to use cardridges because these were hard to copy and because fo instant loading times but most peopel seem to think that it was because nintendo coudl keep iron control over the n64's output and skim profit margines off top
cardridges are a lot smaller then cd's ( though angel studios did manage to some how stuff resident evil 2 with fmv's in to a cardrige ) and a lot more expensive and as such a lot more risky

result : people flocked to the ps 1

the n64 squeeked by on first party titles ( zelda mario ) second party ( rare goldeneye hal labs smash bros) pokemon and a handfull of third party developers ( konami genki infogrames but other then konami no major japanese developer )

nintendo also lost square at that time and since then not a single final fantasy has found its way on a nintendo home console save rereleases of the first 6 on handhelds and crystal chronicles

the cube wa sa great machine but it looked like a lunchbox with that silly handle
and the mini cd's and memory cards made it look like a toy console

the small cd's also limited the games
a mini dvd coudl hold 1.5 gig of data while the ps2 and the xbox could hold 4.7 gig and developers for some reason werent keen on dividing their games up
most multi platform games had content cut from the cube version

the cube had some great games and decent third party support but it was demolished by the ps2

and now the wii

the wii was a phenomenal succes but the attach rate was pisspoor
if peopel bougth games beyond wii sports it was usually a handfull of nintendo games or shovel ware
a lot of games were released ont he wii but the amount sold was miniscule for the installed base

most publishers already burned by nintendo twice didnt even bother

and now we have the wii U a souped up cube with aipad as a controller not even nintendo seems to know what to do with it
a half assed online infrastructure
and almost zero to none marketing
nintendo apparantly hopes that with the wii name lightning will strikes again
a small installed base pitiful third party and much needed games trickeling in 2 years later
nintendo squandered their 2 year lead

but as i said dont count nintendo out
they have a metric ton of money amassed from the wii
pokemon is still pokemanning
and the handhelds are still going strong

but with the wii U they are floundering

sega just had a lot of thinsg working agaisnt them
almost nontsop money bleed
bad pr
the ps2 hype train
piracy
lots of bad blood over the megadrive\game gear\32x\saturn fiasco's
they just couldnt compete

funny you mention indie games
there are still indie games being released on the dreamcast most fo them 2D shmups
like radirgy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radirgy

sturmwind was released last year and elysian wind is upcoming
so the dreamcast is still alive and probably sega's best console ( even though i am biased towards the saturn )