I don't think it will. There is a lot of temptation to think that what happened this generation will repeat in the next. I think just as people over-estimated the PS3 and under-estimated the Wii they will over-estimate the Wii U, The Wii U has significant competition and the casual gamer now has the option of playing games on tablets as well as with the Xbox and Playstation as both Sony and Microsoft have learnt the value of this market.
To be honest I think that Nintendo have been successful inspite of their hardware decisions and not at all because of them. I don't think they made the right decision with the tablet, however their brand recognition and momentum is still strong enough to assure them minimum 30-40M sales, anything more depends on luck, games and the actions of their competitors. In the end I believe they'll sell about 50-70M
Tease.
