To be honest I think the biggest reason the WiiU is not doing well is because the Wii did do so well. Many of the people I know who bought a wii for their kids are just not the sort of people who buy a system because there is a new one out.. They bought the wii for the kids, and it still works.. end of story. Before the Wii it was borrow mom's Ipad, and now that mom doesn't have to share her ipad so much the problem is solved

Most systems become dead once first party support ends.

The Wii was only successful in hardware sales, which ended up being very misleading. The 3rd party support wasn't there, Nintendo's efforts were rather lackluster for a few years after launch.

That said, the Wii is an amazing console when softmodded.

Nintendo is not in trouble, the Wii U is in trouble. Not trying to be a hater, but I seriously doubt that even the new Kart and Smash game is going to help the Wii U have lifetime sales that will eclipse the Gamecube's total sales.

Nintendo needs to correct the ship at E3 (if not before.) They need to announce their online community, a full VC catalog, and give developers money to develop on the damned system.

Things like Bayonetta 2 are a good start but it will be just like Wonderful 101, and won't even be a splash. The virtual console is one of the saddest things I've ever seen and refuse to bite at the prices they have set.

I love Nintendo but really worried for them. They are a long ways away from their prime.

The more I think about it, I think the problem is 3rd party support with AAA titles. The reason for the lack of support is due more to cost of development, most likely. There's more difficulty and added cost to port a title to the Wii U's touchpad interface. You can spend less and strengthen your "hardcore" market by ignoring the platform that will take more development time and skill to release for, that won't give you bucket loads of cash right away. Third parties could invest the time to develop wii U programers, but there is no real incentive to do that.
I think nintendo needs to work on new IPs, or team up to help more with 3rd party development.
Online multiplayer isn't robust enough either.

I'm not really buying the whole "touchpad trouble" that a lot of people cite. Developers could completely ignore the touchpad function since the controller itself is actually quite similar to the ones for other consoles, albeit just larger. It has the same amount of buttons in roughly the same places as the others.

I own a Wii U... I wish I didn't pop for it. Nothing has come out for it since I finished with New SMBU that has even remotely piqued my interest (that I couldn't get for 360).

I'm also not getting an XBone or PS4 either... if anything, I'll get one of those Steam Machines and jump to the dark side.

PC gaming doesn't have to be expensive!

You can buy a mid-range computer and throw in a mid-range graphics card all for around $600 and have a really nice gaming PC.

I'm actually reading an article on lifehacker about the best PC you can build for $600... problem is, I don't really have the time or patience to build one myself. Plus, then I'd have to make space for it somewhere in a 3BR Condo where I already have one room already dedicated to my crap and cannot use the other 2 for it.

Plus, according to Alienware's website, their Steam Machine will be priced on par with the XBone and PS4.  Steam Machine works for me because I can just hook it up to my TV and be done with it (allegedly).

Want a really powerful gaming PC, the size of a couple cell phones stacked up and it's already fully assembled?

You want the Xi3 Piston for $999
http://www.xi3.com/store/system?m...

It's a bit expensive, but god damn the thing is so small you can lose it.

Yeah, that's a bit spendy.

If you actually look at Nintendo's stock, it was down at one point 18% the day the financial report came out and everyone FREAKED OUT.....cept by the end of the day they were only down 6.4% and were still higher than what they were in either October or November.

Nintendo is NOT in trouble, but they do need to do some work on the Wii U to get most of the blind people to buy it. I love the thing to death.

I chose PS4 over WiiU, just as I chose PS1 over N64, PS2 over GCN, and PS3 over Wii. honestly, Nintendo hasn't had a good home console since the SNES. they own the handheld market, but failure after failure in consoles leaves them pretty irrelevant.

I plan on owning either a XboxOne or PS4 someday. I have not owned a Nintendo console since Nintendo 64.

Where are you getting your info?  I actually am interested in Nintendo Stock after the nice discount... I want to do some more research on their numbers though.  But from what I see, they ended the day down 17%, and the extreme low of the day was almost 20% down.

NTDOY on the Tokyo Stock Exchange

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=NTDO...

I bought the Wii near the month it got release and I've only had 2 games that interested me after all these years.

In other words, I feel I would have been better off with a PS3.

That's how I felt when I got a Game Boy Advance. I got four games at launch in 2001 and never a have owned a single game again except those four. I'm glad I own it but it was definitely a waste to get it.

To the original post, I have the Wii U, but for a long stretch I wasn't going to buy it out of the gate if at all. The Wii soured me quite a bit, it still bothers me how they handled it enough I find it almost to get pleasure playing the games I do have on it at all so it's just shelved (the games) for some later year and the system is in the back at a netflix box in the bedroom.

I intend in time with money to get it and at least a half dozen games I care about plus a price drop, on getting a PS4 only, never on the one.

I feared they'd go all stupid gimmick again and not bother with normal tried and true controls and that the games would just be more shovelware level junk they even halfass to a point in places. Having really looked into it weeks before the arrival my opinion of it started to turn due to multiple factors from the tablet capabilities (helpful screen, off tv play, unique experiences) them having true normal controls without weird buttons or gimmicks finally for the first time since the SNES period on a console, and the Mario game was finally a NewSMB done right along with ZombiU and Nintendoland for me and my nephews who come over on occasion or spend the night. I was also greatly encouraged by the fact third parties appeared to have an interest in putting games on there as EA put solid titles, as did Activision and Ubisoft which despite having a PS3 I didn't own and I knew many who just were Wii only types out there would be fresh on them too.

Little did I suspect most third parties would go turncoat, especially EA, and throw them under the bus along with others saying -- system sales first, then games, which is universally unheard of and now we are where we are. I also did not expect NOA to be that reprehensibly stupid in not marketing the system at all on television let alone much of anywhere else taking the Sony in regards to Vita level of arrogance that people and game makers would just flock to it due to their last systems good fortunes. Branding would be the other too since it looks like the Wii U for U is a tablet for U on your Wii versus a new system still which confuses a lot of people including employees who sell them. I think that's all going into being turned off, it's not the tablet itself, and it's not the system, it's all the other bs combined.

Man what I wouldn't give to go back to 2001 lol.  GameBoy Advance was sold out everywhere.  My buddy was lucky and got one and showed me Tony Hawk 2 on it.   I was so impressed I had to have one, and finally got one about a week later.  Man what a dud for me.  I played more GBC games than anything and ended up selling the system eventually

Just like to mention that at least all those systems you mentioned looked different than there predecessor, with the acception of the GB color seeing it's difference by having color games.

If you didn't know what the Wii U was, you would think at first look that it is a more fancy version of the Wii.

Two answers:  Destroyed by Sony's entrance in the home console market, and Yamauchi recently died.  The PS1 did a lot to damage Nintendo's position in the home console market, so much that Nintendo will never fully recover from it.

This. And it's Nintendo's own fault because they could have went through with the Nintendo PlayStation/SNES CD. Instead, they bailed on the CD media (another failure), and halted their partnership with Sony, causing them to use the tech they developed during the partnership to develop their own console. Nintendo created their own worst enemy and brought about their own demise.

I've been in quite a few gamestops lately looking for 3ds and ds games, and before christmas, I was hearing a lot of confused parents thinking the wiiu was the same exact thing as the wii, and that wii u games could be played on a wii. The marketing just isn't there, and I guess Nintendo didn't do a good job distinguishing the difference between the wii and wii u to the average consumer. Another big problem with the wii u is the controller. It's frickin huge which turns a TON of people off. The controller is awesome once you actually use it, but the key word there is once, and many people never even try out the system because they're so turned off from the clunkiness of it.

Nintendo is NOT sinking...if anyone has paid any attention to the 3DS' success, that success alone is enough to keep Nintendo afloat for a while. The wii u is definitely a flop, but for now, Nintendo's handheld is keeping them live and kicking.

I agree the marketing was pretty abysmal in the early running, but have you guys not watched any TV this holiday season? I saw several Wii U commericals between Thanksgiving and Christmas, compared to a total of ZERO anytime in the year before. It may be one of those "too little too late" scenarios, but Nintendo did at least attempt to improve their marketing this past holiday season.

The absolute best marketing is word of mouth though. If they can just break that barrier and get a few more people to adopt it, the consoles will start selling themselves. Friends show their friends and family and the situation repeats.  Especially if there is another slight price drop or AAA releases.

Nintendo can easily make a Wii U / 3DS interface as well, I'm surprised they are dragging their feet there. Give the 15-20 million people that own a 3DS a reason to try the Wii U if they haven't already. There's a handheld attachment for the SNES and Gamecube and it would certainly boost Wii U sales as well.

I was able to snag a PS4 on release day on Amazon and I've enjoyed it nicely so far. The last new Nintendo console that I got was a N64. In fact, my N64 is still the most recently released Nintendo brand console that I own. After the N64, I went to PS2, then PS3, followed by XBox 360, and now PS4. Nintendo consoles seemed to be geared more towards younger generations when the Game Cube came out and so on. That's why I went the PS2 route during that time period.

The consoles that I currently own are NES, SNES, Virtual Boy, N64, Xbox 360, and PS4. I still play my NES more than any of my other consoles because it's simply my favorite. Even after 25 years of playing, it's still my top choice. The main reason that I own an Xbox 360 and PS4 is for online gaming. Also, I will not be getting an Xbox 1. I plan on selling my Xbox 360 when my Microsoft subscription expires in a few months.

I feel like the Nintendo brand never really adapted with the generation that grew up playing it's earlier systems like the NES and SNES. Instead, Nintendo stayed geared towards younger age groups while the PS2 & Xbox geared more towards adults. Adults that grew up playing the NES and SNES. That's why I feel like Nintendo could be struggling as far as home consoles go.