Let me tell ya: With no "full-fledged Mario game" announced yet, WiiU is set to fail as hard as this article does...

Wait people thought that was CGI? People who play Wii and never saw 360 or PS3 games maybe. It looks awesome but thinking something like that is CGI is what gamers did before this gen launched. To place into perspective the Luminous tech demo is not CGI, take a look at that if you haven't, crank that quality up before you watch it too. If the Wii U runs 1080p at 60fps it is in a good place.

No, it was fans of the HD twins. They were spamming the youtube videos and forums with it. The people who played the Wii were the ones who were insistent on it being rendered in-game graphics.

Why would a Nintendo fan think that something that is  being run on their system is fake?

What does the Luminous tech demo have to do with this? We aren't comparing tech demos. We are talking about peoples comments on the Wii U being graphically on par with the current gen consoles or even subpar in. We are talking about the general doomsayer rhetoric that is prevelent in the industry and gaming news media right now.

Like how people were insiting that Arkham City on the Wii U was downgraded, then the devs said the the Wii U version runs at 1080 at 60 fps natively where the PS3/360 version run at 30 FPS at 720p natively.

To be fair the article had a few points; WiiU needs to be stronger than PS720 if they want that hardcore market, the controler isn't as innovative as the Wii-mote and has already been copied (but, how come ONLY Nintendo needs to be innovative to survive?!) And the launch is pretty weak - they only have NSMBU going for them (pikmin isn't huge among casuals and old ports won't convince core gamers to buy a WiiU).

But should we count out Nintendo? Hell no! That's rule nr 1 in the gaming industry! Never ever count out Big N!!

That doesn't make any sense. You can't make something stronger than something that hasn't even been finished yet. No matter how strong Nintendo makes the Wii U, Sony and Microsoft will just look at the specs and up the count in their console before its released. It would be pointless to try to compete with them for the best graphics when their consoles haven't even finished being designed yet.

Its like Reggie said. They had the least success when they had the strongest console.

Yet, once again, it has always been the weakest console that won the gen and got the most hardcore gamers with the exeption of this gen theorectially. Though I honestly don't call people who put graphics first and foremost to be harcore gamers. Being a hardcore gamer is about "playing" games first and formost, not how "realistic" they look.

What? Nintendo chooses to innovate. That is what they have always done. It is not a need, it is an ideal.

There are more games announced for the Wii U right now than any other console released in history including the best version of serveral yet to be released multiplatform games. If that is weak then I would like to know what strong is.

I don't like using the word casual either. Its pretty much an insult to traditional gamers that became popular as a means to dismiss the success of the Wii.

To the question in the title: There's no such thing as too big to fail in consumer electronics. So If Nintendo falls completely life will carry on, including in video gaming.

But it's not going to happen because Wii U will do fine, even if it sells less than PS4 and Nextbox at the end of next gen it will still sell fine and be profitable for Ninty.

So in the end this is an existential non-issue for Ninty in particular and gaming in general.

"The mere thought of even a single generation without a Nintendo console seems unnerving and even blasphemous. Can the video game industry even exist without an active Nintendo system?"

 Sega fans thought the same thing when the Dreamcast got dropped and Sega went multiplatform.  It was a dark day indeed, but life went on.

Can the video game industry exist without Nintendo? Yes it can.

Before Nintendo there was Atari, people called all video games "Atari" because it was ubiquitous. If Nintendo dropped out of the hardware business it we would still get Nintendo games just like how we still get Sega games. It's not ideal, but life would go one. Even if Nintendo went bankrupt it's studios and IPs would just get bought by another company or companies. Again it's not ideal, but the industry would keep chugging along. When Atari fell from grace Nintendo jumped it. If the same happened to Nintendo another would fill the void too.

I pray that ninty never fails. Life wouldnt be worth living.

Apparently Nintendo has enough money saved to last them four generations of reasonable loss. Don't know how accurate that is, though... And @zero129 Do you really think Nintendo won't fail? I just spent 15 minutes reading about how you think they will...

I hate to say it but other than some nasty shots at the original poster who has posted some decent points, i'm not seeing much in the way of rebuttals other than fanboi WII hate attacks.

Nintendo was successful with WII on a number of fronts...innovation, pricepoint and some damn good strategic positioning.  They also relied on an emerging market of a somewhat more casual gamer that really didn't exist before.

If you look at those points, Nintendo will certainly bring more of the same however I cannot envision a situation where either of the other 2 are going to get caught with their pants down like they did with WII.

When I think about the casual gamer aspect that was critical for a ton of their success, I suspect that that market is at least partially saturated...for ANY other console to break into and dislodge the WII from a household that isn't going to really care about tablets and flashy graphics and all that.  They really didn't care about flashy graphics and high end technology during the current generation, why would they care about it going forward.   Lets remember that a crapton of people went out and grabbed WII's because it was the THING to have for a couple Christmases.  Those people didn't really buy a console based on a perceived need...they wanted it because everyone else wanted it.  There are a TON of those WII's that rarely get turned on now...

I do not see the next generation blowing out the same numbers at this generation did....at least not initially.  Many people stepped into the console market in curiousity.  I do not see thsoe same people being interested in upgrading.  I see things picking up or staying stable as more and more people replace their TV's with HD and go to streaming at their TVs with a console.

I just don't see ANY console cracking its way into a number of homes the WII opened up.  Without a vastly more interesting product that tugged on peoples heart strings like the WII did, Nintendo cannot possibly rape and pillage like they did.  Most scary for them is that they must enter the space that Sony and Microsoft are making their bread and butter in...the HD market.  It's going to be awefully difficult for them to separate themselves from the other two in a market that has already existed and already been beaten to death over the last 6 years.

Lastly and very importantly...price point.  Without taking an absolute bath, the Wii U is not going to be $199.00.  I suspect it'll be hard to make the $299.00 price point...at least initially.   Say what you will however the $199 pricepoint was instrumental in MILLIONS of sales for Nintendo.  For people on a tight budget it was an absolute no brainer...crazy fun console, couple hundred bucks, nice and compact, simple to use...frig why buy anything else.  Price point is huge for some people.  The 3DS is a different beast....its hard to make that price and do more than an incremental upgrade to your existing machine.  Now people who look at the 3DS point to the fact that people are slurping them up faster than a drunk at an open bar however the handheld market is a much more zealous environment than that which the WII owned.  There a a TON of WII owners that wouldn't bother to spell zealous when it comes to the dust gathering addition to their entertainment system...let alone be that.

Nintendo must differentiate themselves from Sony and Microsoft if they want to enjoy the same success they had with Wii.  Unfortunately, the only way they can justify an update is going to take them into the teeth of why people bought PS3 and Xboxes.