How well do you think Nintendo's Wii did overall?  You often hear it said that Wii won the 7th Console Generation; however, how desisive do you think its win was overall?  Some stats to help you reach your conclusion.  Even though it was the only 7th Gn Console to sell anywhere near 100 Million Consoles ( it just barely did that and it's not likely to sell much more ) by comparison's sake the winner of the Preceding Generation, Sony's Playstation 2, sold over 50 Million Consoles. 

With the possible exception of Japan ( where Sony's Playstation 3 still has a longshot chance to pass Wii) Nintendo's Wii failed to win one of the major territories as it will be passed in North America by Xbox's 360 and in Europe by Sony's Playstation 3.   And Wii failed by a large margin to gain 50% of the 7th Gen's console market space.  By comparison, Playstation 2 won all three 6th Generation territories and captured over 50% of the 6th Gen's Console Marketshare.

Lastly, years after Wii games had stopped selling and / or being developed in any significant numbers excellent games for its two competitors Microsoft's Xbox360 and Sony's Playstation 3 each and every week.  For its part, Playstation 2 continued to sell ( and to be the most played console ) long into the 7th Gen.

So, how well do you think Nintendo's Wii really performed?  Did it dominate the 7th Gen as its staunchest supporters frequently say or do you think it's early success and quick burnout really do indicate that Wii was just a fad?

One just has to remember that each Wii sold made Nintendo more money than each console of its competitors made their manufacturers respectively. As far as markets go, and businesses go, I call that domination. Nintendo is not in the home media business, so the number of consoles sold means far less for them than Sony or Microsoft (who have ulterior motivations to control the living room.)

Um, amazingly? Over 100 million consoles and ovef 900 million games.  It still managed to sell 70,000 last week.

How is that not amazing?

The top two bestselling games last week were Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 games ( by several million copies) and its two direct 7th Gen competitors more than doubled and tripled the Wii in sales last week.  That never happened to PS1 or PS2 after the conclusions of the 5th and 6th gens.

Business wise: really dominate the 7 gen.
Customer wise: disappointment, fail to meet expectations in the long run, hurt the Wii brand, look at WiiU.

Taken on its own, it was a miracle console, probably something we may never see again in this business (who knows how many console generations are even left). Going from GameCube to that was insane, the system was sold out for like a full year, I remember you couldn't find one even during the second Christmas season.

Probably hands down the most profitable console ever made too (sorry PS2, take a seat).

However its early success really makes the Wii U's early failures taste that much more bitter. 

Wii dominated and made the most money for their company.

To answer that question, I need to wait if Wii U can get out of turbulent waters and sail the red ocean again. It means I have to wait until mid 8th gen maybe, in order to address the success of the Wii as a gaming console. 

Bussiness wise, the Wii had no comparison. Not even the PS2 achieved that level of success by selling the most. The Wii will maybe be the only console to do that with a weak hardware.

There are really IMO three transformative consoles in video game history and they are ...

The NES - Obviously introduced pretty much everything about the modern game business (third party model, D-Pad). Saved the industry. Everything the game business is today is built on the foundation of the Famicom/NES. 

The PS2 - Best selling console ever, first console to tangibly do something other than just play games (DVD player) that people actually used.

The Wii - Introduced motion control and motion gaming, opening up a new casual market.

I think all the truly great Wii games went unnoticed by the masses because they don't really game and the simple and fun games sold the system. I will be picking up the gems I missed on the Wii U in a downloadable fashion. It will really add to the fun when there are game droughts.