I have no desire to discount the Wii but it probably will go down as an aberration, both for Nintendo home consoles and home consoles in general. If the Wii U ends up selling much less, which looks likely, then I think that will confirm that hypothesis. I know people want to get riled up about that but the simple fact is that the competition is now more fierce and dangerous than at any other time during the modern era of gaming. No one is backing down at all so it's a three-way pie.
The other part of the Wii spike, in my opinion, has to do with something I've been saying since before the Wii U released, which is that we would not see back-to-back consoles go viral with casual gamers. I really believe that, which is why I absolutely agree with Nintendo not counting on that segment this time around. Many, perhaps even most, of the true casuals are content with owning a Wii and are far less likely to invest in a new console when "next gen" hits.
For that reason, yeah, I think the Wii will go down as an anomaly and that the Nintendo average going forward will be closer to the GameCube than the Wii. And, no, that's not an insult, as I think that will be a perfectly respectable place to be given Nintendo's normally shorter console life-cycles.
