Yeah, it's unlikely the Wii U will become a success at this point. 15-20m lifetime looks like a decent estimate unless they kill off the console prematurely. It's in a much worse position than the Gamecube was in:
- Dev costs are way higher than back in 2002 but the install base is lower
- Nintendo has problems with HD development and thus a lower software output
- Due to the 3DS struggling they had to allocate more resources to their handheld market
- The Gamecube was very cheap to produce, the Wii U is not due to the Gamepad
- With both the Wii U and the 3DS underperforming life cycles for both platforms will be shortened
The install base is too low to support profitable games. I'm damn sure Pikmin 3 didn't make a profit (selling worse than the Gamecube games and those games performed poorly enough to put the serious on hiatus for a decade!) and the same will happen to Bayonetta, X, Yarn Yoshi and maybe Donkey Kong as well. Basically, the only games that can turn a big profit on Wii U are low budget games like New Super Mario Bros., Wario Ware, Wind Waker HD and so on. Smash and Mario Kart should be profitable due to their high attach ratio but it won't be enough to offset losses on hardware.
Therefore, the Wii U will have long game droughts, a short life cycle and low budget games. Some games will get a big budget (Mario Kart, Smash, Zelda) due to their high popularity but most won't.
Long story short: the point at which the Wii U could've been a big seller is long past. All Nintendo can do now is reduce losses (or turn a slight profit), sit the generation out or do something drastic like cutting the gamepad or releasing a "third pillar" home console (think of an "Ultra Nintendo").
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