They need to show that they can win as the others did.

Winning is nothing.  Profits are the most imortant.

Direction.

Casual or Core?
Entertainment Hub or Game System?
Profit or Market Share?

They better not have a massive hardware fail rate at the start. And their FPS bubble popping. All I can think of.

Been telling this for years. THANK YOU!

OT:

Japan, but meh.

Market share is important. If you dominate the market you can impose your conditions and get an edge over the competition (GTA San Andreas early launch on PS2 its a good example). You get profit and your competitors don't. If you have just a little portion of the market, you will end suffering with that.

Let's imagine that Wii U will dominate the market and the other two will end with a much lower base. Ninty could negotiate exclusivity with COD or at least some months of it. Year after year it would be devastating over the competitors.

Japan. If MS had a real presence in Japan, Sony's position in the industry would be even more precarious. As it stands, their competitors have shown the ability to sell in all three major markets. MS has only been able to sell in two of them.

-New IP's
-Identity
-Japan
-Sony

I think people will be extremely wary of buying an Xbox at launch now.

Growing in Japan market
Growing in Europe
lack of exclusives