I gotta say, I enjoyed all the uninformed PC bashing that happened in here. Yeah, PC master race people may be annoying, but they do have a point. Coming from the perspective of someone who only really discovered the convenience of PC gaming recently, I can say without a doubt that, if consoles didn't have exclusives on them, there would be absolutely zero reason to purchase them. As it stands, I'm finding it harder and harder to justify buying a newer console anymore. I mean, hell, I use a four year old laptop that was only good for medium to low settings for games that released during the same year it did, yet, I have more fun with the games I have on this than I do on, say, my 3DS, or, well, I don't actually own any home console newer than the PS2 at this point, so that's kind of irrelevant. Plus, those Steam sales, hot damn. I've built an 80 game collection, and I haven't even spent $40. I can't do that on a console.
So, tossing in my two cents, undeniably, PC gaming is the superior path. Honestly, after this next generation, I wouldn't be surprised if home consoles became redundant. Except for releasing slightly shinier exclusives, I find it hard to justify the purchase of any next gen home consoles at this point, whether it's a Wii U, a PS4, or a Xbox One. The only new things they bring to the table are things your average PC has been able to do for years. When consoles are essentially just trying to be PC's, why the hell are we still bothering buying stunted PC's for a small handful of exclusive titles?
With that said, to stay relevant in this thread, the Wii U is not going to do a spectacular 180. It'll probably shift about 75 degrees and improve, but it isn't going to do a complete turn around in sales. Nintendo first party titles don't move systems like they used to. They pretty much feed off the install base that's already there because most people who are invested in getting the first party titles would already have bought a Wii U prior to the games releasing. Essentially, they'll only move marginally more systems than usual because the bland weekly sales are exactly those who are only buying for the first party titles anyways. As silly as it might sound, your weekly sales are essentially the systems that are being moved because these first party titles will exist. They're the guaranteed games, and people know that. It's not a surprise when a new Zelda is announced, or a new Mario whatever. You don't have to wait for an announcement like you have to with third party exclusives. Most of the time, you'll only know a third party exclusive is coming maybe a year before its release. You'll only really be stacked with details and deal making gameplay likely within the last couple of months prior to release. With first party games, you know they're coming at some point, and you have a pretty good idea of what you're getting. It doesn't require a lot of convincing, great contemplation, or the like. It doesn't require you putting off buying a Wii U because you don't know for sure if those games are coming.
I figure that Wii U sales will sit snug probably around 25 million total at the end of its life time. Not necessarily a flop, but not a number to be proud of either.
This... Just.... No.
Get the genre right before you comment about it.
Although there seems to be a tone of "Nintendoomed" accross the internet, look at the 3DS sales figures, it has only been about 2 years i believe and the 3DS already had 33 million sales, that's 1 THIRD of the sales of the Wii, assuming that it would have a consistent amount of sales for the next 4 years, it will of reached the same amount of sales as the Wii, though ofcourse Pokemon has not even been released for the 3DS, so we can see how successful it is going to be (Though most importantly, how successful it already IS!!!).
Also the whole 'Streetpass is dead everywhere except Japan was a thing I thought too, but for over a month now I've been recieving 4+ streetpasses a day and each time a bring my 3DS to my local shops, I get a streetpass hit and the shops aren't even crowded.
Most people who say Nintendo is doomed are joking. It's just kinda fun to poke at their lackluster console sales that have been pretty consistent over the years. We know their portable line will sustain them. Each new iteration is immensely popular, even with the growing popularity of phones, that, quite frankly, are more powerful and possess much more potential in the long run. Unlike phones though, a 3DS isn't an expendable piece of hardware. It isn't something you'll replace next year because that new model has a slightly shinier back and two new features for only another $200 than the last. Plus, it's a dedicated portable gaming machine. Thankfully, it doesn't seem smart phones have much of a gaming capacity to go beyond capturing the casual market (which, somewhat ironically, is what stole away the Wii crowd).
As for Streetpass, Nintendo has acknowledged that compared to Japan, it's pretty dead, at least here in the US where they've made it a point to modify Nintendo Zone locations to spit out streetpasses of people who had simply been there previously. When the company has basically acknowledged fully that Streetpass isn't working as they intended, you can no longer argue about how successful it may or may not be.
By the way, for anybody that may think to reference that profit sheet that shows how much money Nintendo makes compared to Sony and Microsoft:
Take your biased stats and stuff 'em where the sun doesn't shine. Nintendo exclusively makes games. Literally, the only way to make it in the red is if both their portable line and console line have bad hardware sales, while simultaneously, they would need to be suffering in terms of software sales. That isn't even counting the amount of official merchandise they must push. On the flip side, Sony and Microsoft are both heavily invested elsewhere. If one or two of their departments start flailing, it could have a significant financial impact on the company as a whole, where as Nintendo is pretty safe, keeping their company in the confines of a single market. You can compare hardware and software sales, but you can't compare plain money amounts. It doesn't work.