People tend to forget just how good the gamecube was on paper.

It launched with a kickass Star Wars game and was cheaper than the competition and was technically both on par with, and in some ways superior to the Xbox (according to John Carmack) but a LOT easier to program than both Xbox or PS2.

GC launched with a lot of advantages, but of course, the industry froze it out.... and Nintendo made it purple.

The N64 had weaker competetion to deal with though ... Sega crippled themselves with the Saturn, which just left Sony and the Playstation, and the Playstation actually had a very slow start. 

People also thought the N64 would naturally be just like the NES and SNES ... see back in those crazy days Nintendo was synonmous with having the most games (read: third party support). People didn't understand that choosing cartiridges over CDs meant that most of the third party games would go to Sony as a result. 

The SNES was like the Playstation 4 of its day. 

When people started to realize the lack of content on the N64, sales slowed, but initially sales were explosive. It's really a shame Nintendo f*cked up on the format choice so badly, I think they would've won that gen running away otherwise. 

Okay, I agree with everything said above. That still has nothing to do with Wii U beating the Gamecube because this example applies to both of those consoles as well. 

Wii U is over 4 million behind the GameCube right now, and the fact right now is that gap is getting bigger every month (not smaller). 

We'll see what happens from here on out, but I think with Mario Kart, 3D Mario, and Smash Brothers already spent ... a miracle ain't happening here. 

I agree that it will be hard. But the new Legend Of Zelda seems to be turning a lot of peoples heads, as well as Xenoblade Chronicles X. They still have some massive games in the pipeline that may not sell in droves as much as Smash or Kart, but will be MORE appealing to gamers (and I think has the potential to push out more consoles as people who own a Wii U buy Kart, but people will buy a console for LOZ). This is where I think they have to potential to sell more systems than the GC. True the GC had Prime (which Metroid is an enigma as not being a major franchise) and Melee (the only game I think that really stands on its own as being a must have game that was hyped as well as stands the test of time), but other games that would later be regarded as gems were met initially with a LOT of hatred. Sunshine and Windwaker anyone? Even Twilight Princess sold massively better on the Wii, due to it being a cross released game. People were just not interested in the GC. 

It was cheaper, came with it's own controller instead of a tablet one that served as a gimmick (I love it myself but it is a gimmick in the end), had a decent lineup and it came out before the eco crash of 08.

Gamecube had Resident Evil 4 which brought a lot to Gamecube. Wii U has nothing than Nintendo games.

A cartoony Zelda isn't going to sell consoles. Not sure even a TP style one would ... it's a really freaking old franchise, I think we need to understand a lot of the kids driving console adoption right now grew up with a PS2, not an NES or SNES. Times they are a changing. 

Xenoblade X looks great don't get me wrong, but I don't see it as anything other than this year's Bayonetta 2 -- a game that gets a ton of hype/praise on message boards but doesn't do jack all in sales. I expect to sell basically the same as Bayo 2 as well. 

The problem with that style of game is that Nintendo lost the fanbase that would be interested in such a game years ago now. That went after the N64 days really, the Nintendo fans that stuck around are hardcore Mario/Zelda fanatics, but they're not into the wider variety content like Xenoblade or Bayonetta. Devil's Third will be a full on flop too. 

Can't sell content like that on a Nintendo console. 

Its the money, I mean price

Well, let's see:

- Cheaper price. The Gamecube started at $199, then went all the way down to $99 in two years. The WiiU is still selling for around $300 at retail.
- More 3rd party support. The Gamecube not only had games from EA and Ubisoft and the like, but actually got timed exclusives like Viewtiful Joe and RE4. The WiiU's 3rd-party line up is a complete joke in comparison, making it FAR more dependent on Nintendo's output than the Gamecube was.
- Spec parity with the competition. AFAIK, the Gamecube actually had better specs than the PS2 but wasn't as powerful as the Xbox. The main limiter ended up being the minidisc format which limited how much data could be stored on a game. The WiiU, meanwhile, is simply incapable of running games at the level several devs are gunning for now.
- Lower cost of development during Gen 6. The PS2 era was the last non-HD gen, and games were much cheaper to make at the time. Thus there was actually a thriving mid-range market at retail, allowing both first and third party developers to make more games and try different things with each game. HD development caused several delays for key WiiU games, and third parties couldn't even justify the cost of ports on it once sales fell off a cliff.
- No brand confusion. Everyone knew the Gamecube was a standalone console, whether they actually wanted one or not. No one thought that the Wavebird controller was just an expensive add-on for the N64 or something.