Well, there is lots of general dissapointment regarding Wii U announcement from Nintendo, but I think this is absolutely the best thing that the big N could possibly have done.

Starting the half-generation

It is now pretty much obvious that Sony will stick with their 10-year cycle, and Microsoft, with the success of Kinect, will likely be announcing their next Xbox in roughly the same time. The games on these two systems are looking better than ever, and the devs will probably reach the technical maximum they can squezee out of the two boxes.
And here comes the Wii U.
The starting 3rd party games for Wii U will look the same as PS3 and X360 games late into their lives. This will be multiplatform heaven for 3rd parties and there will probably be less and less platform exclusive games coming from them. One of the Wii's main problem was lack of 3rd party support, which was the result of 3rd parties decision to stick to three platforms (Ps3, X360, PC) rather to one with highly competitive first party dev power (Wii). This resulted in Wii having been fed with Ps2 ports and shovelware, with the occassional 3rd party hardcore exclusive, mainly from the smaller devs. But, despite of that fact, Wii has now a user base of more than 80 million, and for many of those it is the forst console they own, creating some level of brand loyality. If Nintendo plays their cards right, bringing their top franchises with the release of Wii U, along with most significant 3rd party multiplats, Wii U will have a great future. A combination of great Nintendo exclusives and 3rd party multiplats will make them more appealing than PS3 and X360.
If we also take into consideration that it probably will be stronger than PS3 and X360, when the PS4 and X720 get announced, devs will utilise the extra power from Wii U and try to create a situation where they will still have 4 platforms to release their games, meaning that in the first years of PS4 and X720 3rd party games will not utilise most of those consoles potential. And a year or two after that, nintendo announces a new console and the history repeats itself.

While nintendo definatelly won't be swimming in the blue ocean with WiiU, they won't be swimming in the red one either.

Well, if it is only as strong than 360/PS3 than this is the worst kind of announcement. I probably won't get Wii U if it isn't as strong as PS3/360... I already have both a 360 and a PS3. I'm already phasing out my 360 because it is redundant to have both 360 and PS3. I really hope Nintendo delivers some horsepower on this one.

Nope. They will release the next system as soon as the current console sales plumet. Whichever come first.

I wouldn't say that it is the "best possible move" being that there is a lot we don't know about it, and there are things I expect that Nintendo could have done which would have been more interesting or exciting ...

With that said, since before the Nintendo DS launched a lot of people have discounted and dismissed everything Nintendo has done; and most of what they have said has turned out to be wrong. These are the same people who are assuming the worst possible things from vague rumors and making the same assumptions that have consistently been wrong with every generation of system to justify their belief that the Wii U will be a massive failure; just like they believed the Nintendo DS and Wii were going to be massive failures.

nintendo is scarce on the details, but I habe the feeling they will try to counter the tablet assault and in the same time deal with sony and microsoft on the console front. iwata said that they will try to lure people that never considered owning a console. who knows, maybe they even incorporate android on some level, but that is highly unlikely.

I have the feeling that nintendo will blast both sony and ms with wiiU, they were dictating the tempo this gen, and had loads of time to prepare wiiU, while sony and ms had to put significant time and effort to develop their casual hardware. Even the nintendo release list shows that they are completely abandoning Wii and probably putting most of their talent and resources into wiiU, showing their confidence in the new system. they could've easily push wii a year or two longer and get respectable sale figures.

The only thing that i think Nintendo should have done at E3 was show the console aswell and that confused gamers and the public in general.
I get why Nintendo focused on the controller and not on games. The controller was what separated Wii from the competition so they probably decided to stand out based on that alone.
The games will come. And most probably at E3 next where Nintendo will not only show 3rd party games running on the hardware (Ubisoft was the only one that showed that) and will also unveal their 1st party line-up aswell as give more insight on what the controller can do.
Honestly i think it was a bold move for them to bring the controller with just 2 demo videos (the bird and the crowded street) and a few demos to show the controller off, but i think it will pay off next year when Nintendo does reveal it`s "game" for real!

A 10 year plan for PS3 seems a bit unreal. PS2 did that because it was the leader of it`s generation and it provided content for all kinds of gamers, building a huge and great librabry of games. PS3 nor Xbox 360 have all that.
Supposing that could happen we could reach a period where Wii, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, Xbox 720 and PS4 would all live in the same market. That`s 6 consoles. Even if they coexist for a year or two that will hinder the future generation. Unless of course they exist just because of their back catalogue.

I still think that in 2013 both companies will release their new consoles. The more they wait, the more they let Wii U regain trust from core gamers.

Im not totally sold about the controller because i think that Nintendo took a step back... I still think that the Wii Remote is the best controller ever! :P

In terms of graphical power it was the best move because graphics aren't going to take a major leap forward... the next Xbox and Playstation will have today's PC directx 11 graphics, in pratical terms they will have better  textures, better framerate and not much more.... and also today's  game development costs are too high... in 6 years we only seen one GTA, one FF, etc... publishers can't afford another major leap forward, remember what happened to N64?

Wii U will start up with improved port's from PS3 and X360, eventually with time they will make better use off the dev kits and  then when the others next generation consoles appear Wii U will be not  too far behind and it will have 1 or 2 years advantage of market share.

I predict that Microsoft and Sony will show their next consoles next year because they can't give Nintendo a 1 or 2 year head start... that will be their doom.

Man if the Hd twins drop their price down 150$ when the wiiu comes out LOL. good luck,

Well that's  true but at least Sony can't drop the PS3 price much more, maybe they cant drop it to 200 euros (-100 euros). Sony can't afford throwing money out of the window don't forget that PS Vita will come out this year and Sony already said that will sell it at cost and  that they only expected to have profit in the third year of life. On the other hand Microsoft can drop the price of X360 down to whatever lol if necessary they put it at 150 euros with 6 or 7 games bundled like they did with the older systems when the new slim came out. MICROSOFT IS ALL ABOUT $$$$$$$$$$ !!!! :P

Because a $129 PS2 was a major factor in preventing the Wii from becoming successful?