I wouldn't worry to much about that.

The PS2 took off because it launched earlier than the GameCube and the Xbox, had the brand recognition and a DVD player. This new gen all consoles have about the same recognition (only exception is Xbox in Japan), both the Nextbox and PS4 will have BR and the WiiU launched earlier.

Besides, if we look at the trend of the sales and the feeling we get from them (I admit this is rather personal), is that the Nextbos will do well in the US and moderately good in Europe. The PS4 will do well in Europe and Japan and "okish" in the US where the brand has lost appeal to Msoft. WiiU is doing good/"okish" in US and Japan and bad in Europe. Since no console will dominate in all 3 markets, there's little chances of a new PS2.

Besides, now it's more common to have 2 consoles than it was before, and while there are some that have both the PS3 and Xbox360 (usually with one of them bought years after release whit a few price drops), the usual combinations are Xbox360+Wii or PS3+Wii if only because the Wii was "for the family". If Nintendo achieves to do that again, sales of 40mil are achievable.

Launching first haven't helped Nintendo much, not yet anyway. And I agree - and I think most would - that your analysis about each region seems pretty good. And I don't really think we'll see a PS2 situation, but rather a reversed Wii situation; TWO consoles taking off, leaving the third behind. I'm sure Wii U could get 40m sales, but I'm not to sure if that will warrant 3rd parties to port games to it. And if the system is crippled with regards to PS720, those ports will be pretty shitty anyways and nobody will want them... THAT'S what I'm worried about. I don't really care if Wii U sells 40m or 100m; I want good 3rd party support.

But, as Wii and PS3 in its early years have proved, console sales doesn't guarantee 3rd party support, good or bad.

What matters is if the owners of a console buy your games or not. Take for example the sales of CoD: Modern Warfare 3 since it's the most popular series and genre of this gen and compare it to the hardware (aprox)

Xbox360_ Consoles: 73.9mil # Game: 14.80mil => 20% of the owners bought the game

PS3_ Consoles: 72.3mil # Game: 12.58mil => 17.4% of the owners bought the game

Wii_ Consoles: 98.7mil # Game: 0.59mil => 0.60%  of the owners bought the game

That is the problem and that is the reason Nintendo said that wanted to cater the core games again. If we look at the numbers from Black Ops II on WiiU, the result is about 6% (2.58mil consoles and 0.15mil games). That's a big improvement but I fear that it's still not enough. They need to reach at least 10%.

After all, if Nintendo only sells 20mil consoles but the ratio fro those games are a 10%, that's still 2 million games sold that given that the ports from Nextbox and PS4 will be easier and cheaper to do, would make it an option to take into consideration for publishers.

But we have to ask us WHY didn't CoD sell well on Wii? Was it because Wii owners didn't care for that kind of game? Or could it because it was a gimped version, and "core gamers" preferred the better version so they got it on PS360 instead? This is the kind of problem I'm trying to get at; if the Wii U ports will suffer as much as they did on Wii, people will not buy them, they will instead get a PS720, and 3rd parties will not sell any games on Wii U, which in the end means that 3rd party support will dry up altogether...

And the reason why CoD didn't sell well on Wii U is because most people already have a PS360, so they simply bought it on those consoles. And then we have this whole debate whether or not it was inferior to the PS360 versions, further deterring people from buy a copy for the Wii U. I think this year will be a much better tell tale how CoD will do on Nintendo's new system...

No, it's all the "hardcore" guys/girls that bash nintendo at every time possible and why the hell would you buy a whole new console just to buy COD2 that you can alredy play on a system you own; with next to no upgrades (it is a port of a game, you dont remake the game) and the fact that your friends that you want to play with alredy have the other console.. pretty dead given why it didn't sell.

I mean, if you'd gotten a wiiU and bought COD for it you'd get laughed at by your 'friends' etc. thats just the truth (for prob 13-20yo'ds, and that is the core audience for this game)

Yes, you have very good points. But the quesion should then be; why are Nintendo laughed at by young hardcore gamers? Is it because if their kiddy image? Or the fact that they can't get good support because their system couldn't handle ports from PS360 without dumbing them down? Nintendo really only has themselves to blame for this screw up, and I'm fearing that they haven't learned their lessons and will do the same mistake again.

Imo. It's the lame ports of high quality games that made them leave, and the fact that the wii didn't get some of the cool games cause, it couldn't handle it on a system power perspective.
Nintendo caters to like.. everyone (wouldn't be surprised if they made a game for your cat). Making a princess - dress me up, game dosn't make the system look matcho and cool = 'cool' people shun from it and don't want anything to do with it. (for fear of association with those things)

When you grow older those things matters less, but adults want deeper experiences than a 6yo kid with ADHD (you give him a DS to make the kid occupied & hopefully shut up). Again, making you associate it with kids.

Kinect made MS kinda into that spectrum, wonderbook for PS, but they've got the other games too = hypocrytical as they are (and as i were as a Nintendo fan in my early days) you start defending that part.
Untill you get to the part when you are old and realise what matters and stop with the idiotic arguing that dosn't improve anything
(like the "my thing is better than your thing" stuff)

well, thats my take on it atleast.. now i gotta lie down for a while.. f*cking feaver :-/