Lots of great points, but no fear. Wii U will be riding on the fad appeal

I'm sure it will do fine. While the graphics may not be much better than this current gen, it will be much more affordable, and Nintendo games in HD will be amazing. I think next gen for them will be like the Gamecube where they relied a lot of first party titles, but this time they will be bringing over a very large userbase from the Wii.

That is another point I didnt add, the IPs. Nintendo have the best and most known IPs of every major hardware maker, but its time for them make more! I love my Donkey kong Country Returns and my Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, but they cant afford to keep using the sames franchises over and over and over. A lot of peeps (not me) are getting tired of playing the "same games" from Nintendo. But there is a problem, now more than ever the budgets are going to the roof, and nintendo has to make a decision, are they spending major money on releasing an unproven new IP, or they release a big and complex Zelda game? They dont have the expierence other developers have in making this BIG and EXPENSIVE AAA games with dozens of enemies on the screen and truelike physics, so that means= less games = less new IPS= less interest of possible buyers. :(

that price sounds good to me, so idk what you're talking about in that point. also if price mattered that much the wii would have won last year.

both the ps3 and 360 have fallen in popularity in sales, 4 monthes straight of decreased sales from last year. Them in first place is like winning spelling be against 5th graders. Yeah you one, but you were facing crap competition.

casuals gone? Then why has just dance sales gone through the roof? Considering nintendo has a tablet controller, im sure they dont give an f anyway if they sales were going to tablets.

be honest with you, the internet might care about power, but the real people who buy the consoles dont care. the wii u will be powerful enough for them

plus, first parties first parties. We haven't seen a HD nintendo IP yet, which people will flip out for

and no matter what anyone else says, nintendo doesn't care about the hardcore. they arent going after them, they may say they are, but they arent. They go where the money is and the hardcore have never payed well

I am more worried about Vita and Playstation 4 to be honest.

1) I have the impression that the PS3 and the 360 are not doing wonderfully in the sales deparment right now. I think they are having decent sells.

2) Lets wait for the E3 to know who Nintendo is going after with the Wii U.  If they  learned something from the 3DS launch is that the only way for them to be succesful is to try to expand the DS and Wii market. Going after the "Harcore" crowd  would be a mistake.

3) $300 is just $50 more than the Wii launch price. If we use your logic then the PS3 should not have cost more than $200 at launch. Why buy the PS3 if the PS2 is a lot more cheaper and has big library of cheap and good games? to play new games maybe?

4) The power means next to nothing for a console to do well. If the power was that important the PS1, PS2, Wii and DS would have been last in their respective generations. If the power is was that important the PSV would be outselling the 3DS by a long margin. The games and an affordable price are the key to have a succesful console.

5) There is a problem with that logic. I am going to be able to play Mario Bros,3D Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Smash brothers, Mario Kart and all the Nintendo games on those systems? all those games that you listed I am sure they will be great games, but the power of Ninendo franchises can be denied.

6) The casual gamers did not left the Wii for facebook and to play on tablets. Nintendo stopped making the games that they wanted to play on the Wii. If Nintendo had launched New Super Mario Bros 2, Wii Sports 3, Donkey Kong Country return 2 a 2D New Legend of Zelda and a New Super Metroid the Wii would still be selling like hotcakes.

I am worried as hell sometimes. So no you are not the only one.

Am I the only one who thinks that starting a thread with "Am I the only one who" is just a way to draw attention to their thread. When asking this question to the Internet, the answer is always, No, you are not the only one. With billions of other people on the internet there is bound to be at least a couple thousand that agree with you.

@op - I'm not trying to criticize you specifically, I'm just hoping less people with start a thread leading with that phrase. For some reason it has started to bug me. Just had to get this out of the way.

Good job organizing your thoughts, here are my thoughts:
I don't think the WiiU will do as well as the Wii, but think it will do as good as, if not better than, the Game Cube. Here is why I think that.
a) Though many Wiis now occupy the bottom of a dusty box in a garage or attic Nintendo did rebuild it's brand with a huge audience over the last 6 years. They have built some new fans who will probably want the next system.
b) The WiiU will sell to the Nintendo faithful, who know that they have to get it to enjoy their favorite Nintendo games on a TV. (One example is me. Though I mainly game on my 360 and occasionally on the PS3, I still have a Wii for the Nintendo exclusives. Yes I am a Nintendo fanboy at heart, thought I don't get as much use out of my Wii as my other systems.)
c) Nintendo is a great marketing machine. They were able to push a system that wasn't near as powerful as Microsoft and Sony's and it sold mad numbers. They know how to make their system stand out and grab people. They were able to get millions of people to spend $300+ on a system and controllers just to play Wii Sports. Also look at how they were able to turn the 3DS around, no one thought it would do as well as it is now at any price. As Apple is to Phones, Nintendo is to Video games. They aren't the best, but they know the right way to market their product to keep people running to the stores.
d) The reason I don't think the WiiU will do as well as the Wii, is they waited too long. A lot of kids who were raised on the Wii have already moved on the the Xbox360, PS3 or to PC gaming. The game library didn't grow up with them. They may still want to play the Zeldas and Marios, but they also want the Call of Dutys and the Uncharteds, in terms of graphic and online play it simply wasn't there on the Wii. If the WiiU had come out a couple years ago, they may have retained a lot of these customers, since 3rd party devs are more than happy to port their games from one system to the next.
e) Nintendo only lost a small part of the casual market. Though the Kinect and Move have sold well, together they have not sold even close to half of what the Wii sold. Plus there are always new customers entering the casual market every day, children are born everyday.

Sorry if my thoughts run together, I didn't get much rest last night.

1) I WAS A WII ONLY GUY FOR YEARS, BUT IT  BECAME MORE AND MORE APPARENT THAT IT WASNT ENOUGH FOR ME :(, THE DROUGHTS WERE INSANE AND I JUST BOUGHT A NEW CONSOLE. I AM HAPPY WITH MY 2 CONSOLES NOW, BUT I DONT KNOW IF I AM GONNA BE THERE ON DAY 1 BECAUSE OF THE BAD EXPERIENCE. NINTENDO ITS GONNA HAVE (FOR A LITTLE WHILE AT LEAST) 4 PLATFORMS TO SUPPORT AND I AM NOT EXPECTING THEM TO GIVE US A TON OF GAMES FOR THE 3DS/WII U (BECAUSE THE INSANE DEVELOPMENT TIME AND MONEY OF HD DEVELOPMENT AND THE INEXPERIENCE THEY HAVE), I THINK THEY ARE GONNA TRUST THE 3RD PARTY GAMES TO DO THE JOBS THIS TIME, MY EXPECTETIONS ARE A LITTLE LOW RIGTH KNOW...

2) YES, BUT THEY ARE NOT GOING TO SET THE CHARTZ ON FIRE WITH THE WII U THIS HOLIDAY SEASON, AND AS I SAY, I AM NOT EXPECTING A LOT OF 360/PS3 GUYS TO BUY A WII U WHEN THEY CAN PLAY MOST OF THE SAME GAMES IN THEI RESPECTIVES CONSOLES.

3) YEAH, LETS HOPE FOR A $299 :) I TRUST NINTY IN THIS ONE.

4) YEAH BUT NINTENDO DONT HAVE THE EXPERIENCE TO PULL OFF A BIG ZELDA ADVENTURE AS WE ARE EXPECTING, PROBABLY TO HAVE A COMPLETE GAME WITH THIS KIND OF GRAPHICS (EVEN BEING DEV KITS GRAPHICS) WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO WAIT SOMETHING LIKE 4 YEARS IN THE WII U LIFE, NINTENDO DEVELOPERS ARE STARTING TO LEARN HOW TO DO THIS.

5) PROBABLY BECAUSE OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HD AND SD DEVELOPMENT, I DONT THINK WE ARE GOING TO SEE MORE THAN

-PIKMIN 3

-NEW SUPER MARIO BROS MII

-DONKEY KONG COUNTRY 2 OR METROID 4 FROM RETRO

-WII U SPORTS/PLAY

-DRAWING APPLICATION/GAME

FROM THE 1ST PARTY SIDE OF THE THINGS, ANDS THATS BEING REALLYYYYYYYYY OPTIMISTIC. :p

Considering I'm a Nintendo fan and I'm not very interested in WiiU, yes, I'm a bit worried about Nintendo's future. I guess all will depend on the E3. They have to show a lot of "Must Have!" games, a new 2D Mario and a game that has the same impact Wii Sports had, allowing people to imagine new ways of playing and the potential WiiU may have in the future. If they cannot achieve this then I don't see it having a good future.