The Wii released at $249. I'll predict the WiiU will relese $299-$349 or Nintendo will be eating a sizable chunk of their normal profit margin that they make from hardware (just as they did with the 3DS) for a good long while.
The other issue is that the UPad does not add much to the non-gaming experience, which imo was the primary driver for the Wii success. The UPad adds a paltry bit to the gamer experience, almost entirely party based. It wasn't the droves of Nintendo fans that made the Wii a success, though it was only Nintendo fans that kept the Wii going for as long as it did. Nintendo will be hard pressed to grab these non-gamers any more than the other two, given what i've seen so far.
Instead they will be attempting to grab the attention of gamers, a decidedly different chunk of the previous gen market, one in which could be said would have put the Wii in third place. If you add a generous 50% growth of _gamer_ purchases to Nintendo you only reach a rather paltry 40-50m lifetime console sales, which is _not_ good.
By the time each gen is winding down each console, if all three of them are darn dead even, each should be selling roughly 70-80m each.
A warrior keeps death on the mind from the moment of their first breath to the moment of their last.
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