Let's go straight for the numbers:

First, the bad numbers. This gen June 2014 (Wii U's second year, PS4/XOne's first year)

Lame totals

Consoles sold: 1,159,915

LTD Consoles: 19,799,542

Now with the good numbers. Last gen June 2007 (X360's second year, Wii/PS3's first year)

Smashing totals

Consoles sold: 1,969,538

LTD Consoles: 23,258,022

As you can see, LTD numbers are not bad, for now. But let's look at the monthly sales and the weekly average sales, yes, terrible numbers. With those sales it won't be able to fight against last gen.

On the other hand, let's be honest here: outside of the PS4, everything else doesn't have a bright future, unlike last gen when Wii was dominating (real domination) and every console had a bright future ahead. Who won't be happy with those incredible sales: Wii over 100M, and PS3/X360 over 80M.

Industry clearly needs Nintendo as the leader, Nintendo wins, Microsoft wins, Nintendo wins.

Source: VGCHARTZ

Note: For June 2014 it was taken 5 weeks (including week ending 5th July) for a more exact comparision as June 2007 was 5 weeks.

No it did better when Sony was, look at the ps1-ps2 era vs the gimmick era of the wii

Are you sure?

5th gen - Leader PS1 (Sony)

3DO - 2M

Atari Jaguar - 250k

Sega Saturn - 9.4M

PlayStation - 102M

Nintendo64 - 32.93M

Total - 146.58M

6th gen - Leader PS2 (Sony)

Dreamcast - 10.6

PlayStation2 - 160M (?)

NintendoGameCube - 22M

Xbox - 24M

Total - 216.6M

7th gen - Leader Wii (Nintendo)

Xbox360 - 84M

PS3 - 84M (?)

Wii - 101.06M

Total - 269.60M

Less systems more consoles.

What does Wii being the leader have to do with PS3+360 selling ~160 million?

If ps2 did't have "gimmick's" they would never had sold +80 mill..

Singstar.. eyetoy.. buzz and the plastic guitar made the ps2 shine..

So in fact.. it was 6 gen. h´that was the "gimmick Gen"

(and motion is in everythin now.. thats not a gimmick.. thats a revolution.. :)

Really the industry just needs Nintendo to do decently, MS and Sony fight over a certain crowd and it would seem Nintendo has the ability to garner a different one. Nintendo doing so massively worse this generation is a large part of why this generation is not matching the last in total sales.

Whether doing better means Nintendo leads or just does 80m instead of 20m doesn't matter as long as Nintendo pulls their weight.

The Wii wasn't really a leader among the core audience. At least half, if not more, sales came from the casual audience, which is very fickle, and it showed when all of them jumped ship half way through the generation for iPhone and Android.

That being said, Nintendo is integral to the gaming community for their excellent exclusives.

Wii sacrifice itself with shovelware and casuals games while PS3+360 take all the good games. Therefore people needed to buy every console, the Wii faddy console to be in and the other two to play great games.

The gimmick is good for a short period of time but long time, that's an other story yes?

It was the leader and numbers proves it, please leave arbitrary measurements out.