Let's be real, the very announcement of a successor console kills lots of the sales.

Even myself, I was a potential Wii customer as I have been on the fence for a long time wether I would get a Wii or not (mostly targeting Zelda) and I've been waiting for a price drop to $149 or something, but now with the new console on the horizon I definitely won't get a Wii.

Sales projection.

If you were holding out this long, I don't think you would have been convinced anyway.

But still, the new system still needs to set itself apart from the 360 and PS3, and not just from carrying the Wii games and control over.

So you are claiming that hardcore gamers will not buy any of the systems anymore in this gen, not even as their third console?

All new sales of WiiPS360 come only from casuals or people that are new to gaming?

Okay, my comment came out wrong. I was just noting that the system has been around long enough for something to convince you to buy it already, and that clearly hasn't happened, which makes it very unlikely to happen later. I meant that to be an observation, not a judgment, and sorry for making it seem like the latter.

I'd say it most definitely is dying. We know the next home console is coming next year, therefore the Wii has a limited amount of time remaining as Nintendo's main focus in the home console market. It doesn't matter if it still gets a bit of support once Cafe is released, it's the moment that it is no longer the main focus when it truly dies. All we need is a release date for Cafe and we can mark that tombstone.

And all of that has absolutely nothing to do with it's sales levels in the present, for the rest of the year, or post Cafe release. They could cut the price to £99/$99 right now, end up being up YoY for the year, and it'd still be a console in the twilight months of its life.

It also doesn't matter if there's a truck load of Wii announcements at E3 for the holiday season and beyond, as we still know what's coming next year.

That's still going by a personal definition of the word, which is too subjective to make a good argument, as the posts on this thread have shown.

That the Wii will "Pass the Torch" is the real the term for that.

So Iwata is an even larger fool than I thought he was and my point still stands.  Even big games on the PS360(GT, Halo, GeoW) are announced well ahead of time and I don't hear 3rd parties complaining. Further more I don't see much being made of this dry spell on the 3DS let alone the Wii despite it being wide open for 3rd parties.  Looks to me like they made a serious bet on the wrong horse.

This is going to set a foundation of that tiny percentage of gamers that purchase 56% of all the games thinking they have nothing in store for them and they lose even more marketshare and softwares sales.  If they really wanna please third parties they could release no software to compete with them.  With how much they seem to be pandering to them that doesn't seem impossible.  If they really wanna create more momentum they could create more studios or purchase more.  They made the Wii what is by themselves and for the most part the same with the DS.  You don't tell people games are coming and they think... gasp no games are coming. 

I do understand. i just think he is a fool. If I didn't understand I would say as much.

I didn't think he was a fool when the Wii or DS were announced as I saw potential in the control schemes.  I do think he was a fool for never having them capitalize on that interesting control scheme outside of WS/R, Wii Play.  Just like I think Sony are MS are fools for not having capitalized on it with their copycat systems.  Hell they could've made great games out of the minigames found in those titles alone which would have been cheap and easy to develop as they already had the foundation and yet they did nothing.

I do understand their long term situation. 3rd parties don't like them.  They haven't since the SNES days.  N64 got shit for support. Even though it was more powerful and in many ways superior to the PS2 the same happened with the GC.   Now we are on a three peat with the Wii.  I do think it's foolish of them to ignore what has worked for them recently to allow those who have mocked them and barely even given token support for a decade and a half the opportunity to shine.

I think Project Cafe is even more foolish. Why make a system to get 3rd party multiplats when they will be on consoles that are cheaper than your new one?  What is the incentive for customers?  I guess it's the same way that 3D and lower battery life along with software that costs more than the PS360 versions is supposed to be incentive for the 3DS. 

They could just be making and announcing new good games that consumers want to play. That would be an excellent strategy for a videogame company.   Which is why my point still stands. 

"As for who's right or wrong in terms of Nintendo's future, only time will tell. But by the trend we saw lately, I couldn't see them sustain interest by continuing in the same old direction. PS360 are gaining momentum by each passing day, so the good old Nintendo Wii/DS strategy seems at least presently defeated. Discussed ad nauseam in thread"

They stopped that same old direction. That's why the Wii lost momentum. They had to have stayed on it to keep the Wii moving up, or gotten back on it to get the Wii back on track.