Will Japan save Nintendo and the Wii U like they did with the 3DS?

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sperrico87 said:
Nintendo needs to have at least some moderate success in their home country in order to be a successful company, especially now that repatriated money from overseas is costing them and others so much in profit due to currency fluctuations from Europe and the United States.

Nintendo's problem is that many, maybe a third to one-half of the games that make their systems successful in Japan have very little or no popularity in overseas territories where most of their business is done. The popularity of JRPG's in North America has gone down significantly since the days of the PS2, so while Iwata is able to gain a lot of traction by releasing so many huge Japanese franchises in quick succession on 3DS, releasing those same titles in the West will not have the same results. Just look at 3DS software performance in the US... it's not good.

Monster Hunter Ultimate for Wii U will have great success in Japan in the spring, but it's unlikely to sell very well over here.

But to answer your question... Nintendo needs Wii U to be at least a minor success in Japan, as they do in all territories with Wii U, otherwise they will have severe problems. By minor success, I mean GameCube-level sales as a bare minimum. I definitely see them doing fine with the Wii U. We can probably expect lifetime sales of at least 60 million, which is almost double what N64 was able to do.

They've got Monster Hunter, Bayonetta, some huge third-party ports that they haven't had since GameCube's early days, as well as all of the huge first-party stuff that will be announced at E3 next summer. They'll be fine.

Monster Hunter Ultimate is out today in Japan not next spring. Next spring is Monster Hunter 4 for 3DS. 

I see more like 45-50 million Wii Us sold if there's a big decline, which would basically be half of the Wii's audience.