No that wasn't me. I just bought the one. Only reason I bought it was because my store put their first shipment in different parts of the back room (for some idiotic reason) so they forgot about some until I found them and told them about it. Since the store thought they were sold out they were turning everyone away who came in asking. I think I found 20 so by the time I got off work no one else came in looking for one so I bought it. I tried to sell that one but the next week my store got another shipment in and really havent sold out except during black friday but got replenished quickly again.

Gotcha. My mistake!

And now I feel really stupid. Which, admittedly, is not uncommon on Friday nights..

So gamestop.com has them iwonder if they will have them in there stores.

Said times?

they just got stock in what's left to say?

I would argue that the Dreamcast makes a pretty poor counter-point primarily because of the abysmal financial position of Sega at the time coupled with the long string of mistakes that alienated their core customers, and the fact that the PS2 was the successor to the previous generation's market leading console which was also the most successful system of all time (when the PS2 launched).

Essentially, when has the successor to a market leading console (or the successor to a 30+ Million selling system) launched a year or more before the competition and not outsold that competition? The closest we get is the XBox 360 vs. the PS3/Wii and the Genesis vs. the SNES, where (in both cases) the system that launched first saw a massive increase in sales; and even the poor Dreamcast was selling far better than the Sega Saturn, and would have likely sold 2 to 3 times as many units as the Saturn did had Sega been able to afford to keep it alive.

Nintendo Land once you play it is very appealing to casuals and expert gamers. The funny thing is that you really have to get Nintendo Land in the hands of people for them to understand what its about. Personally I did not get it until I was showing the console off to friends and then I got into NL myself. And because it is a set of mini games rather than motion gaming like Wii Sports, it has that much more of a learning curve depending on the mini game you decide to play. For example the learning cure on the Metroid minigame might be higher than for Chase Mii - however both will appeal to casual gamers.

The reason I think Nintendo Land would sell just as much as Wii Sports is because once Nintendo builds a fanbase with NL, all they'll have to do is keep adding different mini games and repackaging the thing.

Also, if you check Miiverse, there is almost always more people in the NL community that any other including the NSMB U and Zombie U communities. So NL definitey is attracting people IMO.

Counterpoint: when has the successor to a market leading console launched a year of more before the competition?The answer is either "never" or "once" (if we discount the Dreamcast...).

If you're trying to use prior data to gauge future performance, it's not much to go by. The examples you gave are actually poor ones, since the 360 for certain did not achieve a large lead during its one-year head start (and was very quickly surpassed by the Wii; the only reason things are even close today is because the Wii's support effectively died two years ago). I don't have data for North America on the Genesis' lifetime performance, but I do know that its headstart in Japan did it zero good (it placed third, behind even the TG-16) and I believe it did worse in North America as well (ultimately, the Genesis sold roughly 20 million fewer units worldwide than the SNES, notwithstanding its headstart and its superior performance in Europe).

I see nothing to indicate that lead time is a particularly big factor for success. The SNES crushed the Genesis and TG-16. The PS1 beat the N64, but not only is that the sole example, it is also likely better explained by Nintendo's failures than Sony's lead time. The Dreamcast's lead time did it virtually zero good, seeing as how the system lasted a scant 2-3 years. The 360 lost to the Wii, notwithstanding that it still effectively has three* extra years on the market.

The prior four generations indicate that lead time has far less import than you're asserting. I submit that other factors are far, far more important to the final outcome, even for third-party support, than being on the market a year or two before the competition.

*Again, in light of the release schedule I consider the Wii largely to have been abandoned starting in 2011. Notable releases became...scarce...starting in that year. Even assuming, arguendo, that the 360 has only one additional year, the 360 will not only still lose, but no rational arguement can be made that the additional lead time would be responsible for its gradual gaining on the Wii. Especially since its status as a second-place console, while likely, is even now not set in stone.

i'm not sure if i quite see that as a strength though either.  the market seems to be split to me and the divide seems to be growing.  a large segment doesn't care much about quality (imo) of games and are happy buying up ipads/smartphones for games due to the $0-1 point for games.   another segment only seems to care about the absolute highest quality AAAA games and gravitating to fewer but higher quality games and shunning any sort of middle-ware game.  

there may only be a few developers that can afford the high costs of the ps4/720 but there will be even fewer that can afford the ps3 level costs if that portion of the consumer base isn't there.  nintendo is left in the middle without the ability to deliver to the most demanding consumer and without the ability to reach the price point of the other consumer.  

i just don't see who is in that middle point not really cheap but not really advanced.

and i choose neutrally buoyant.  nintendo was suppose to have made a profit on the gamecube.  even if the wiiU only sells 20M (and i think that number far too low) i still think nintendo makes it work.   profitable hardware sales.  profitable game sales.  they'll get by.

Playstation 3 sold 150k launch week in the States and still had units on shelf the same week.

Wii U had over 400k sold, Discuss.

I mean whats the point of this thread? Another opportunity to bash Nintendo blah blah flop. It's irritating and annoying, sorry.
Since when has gaming companies become a competition of who fails first?!

As a more traditional sort of gamer, why would any of us care if the Wii U blew up like the Wii due to the adoption of "casual" software such as Wii Sports and Nintendo Land?

The only growth i personally care for, as a consumer, are other consumers with like-minded purchasing habits.