It is a reasonable analysis. It is less than a month since its release in the US and there is hardly any ad for it.

Seriously, people, read the source article. The OP is wrong. Pachter predicted the Wii U would sell MORE than Nintendo's stated goal.

So he doesn't think the system is any good, yet he's criticizing Nintendo for not shipping enough of them, lol.

I think 5.5m for launch to March31 is definitely too low.

Wii was 6m in same time frame (Nintendo only was able to ship 5.7m) but could of sold at least 12m had they produced that many.

WiiU is definitely going to be a hot item. Seeing what happened to Wii and the game lineup they were planning, Nintendo should of shot for at least 8m in that time frame. 6m in 2012 for holiday/launch and 2m for Q1 2013.

The higher amount would have made cost to manufacture lower as well helping with the 'selling at a loss' scenario as each item would have been a lower cost. I know they are cautious due to how 3DS stumbled out the game. However, it had NO SOFTWARE and a price that was double what the DS launched at. WiiU has A TON of great launch software and is at a reasonable price for a console.

This is one rare item I actually agree with Pacman.

As for the 4 games per console, that makes sense. I have more than 10 games on that list I want. By March31 there is AT LEAST 4 Nintendo games I want, let alone the many more 3rd party games coming. You have to figure in each territory, all WiiUs will have AT LEAST two games bought at launch. Then over the course of the next 4+ months, most will get two more games and a lot should be purchasing more than that. I know I will.

>80% of users will have NintendoLand and NSMBU, easily. Then you have large segment that will have COD and ZombiU. Finally you have AssCreed3, JustDance4, Pikmin3, MonsterHunter3, Rayman, Scribblenauts, and probably a massive push on digital sales for everyone on the deluxe WiiUs with the 10% discounts.

24m is a solid estimate from Nintendo. However, it kills me that its actually low as they should be putting out 8m consoles in that same time frame, thus up to 35m copies of software.

well teh first 4 mils peopel to buy this are fans or gamers... 3/4 games it is not impossible but the average will slow down as soon (and hopefully when) the Wii U will hit the mass market.

While I have no doubts the Wii U will be successful, I wouldn't ship substantially more systems than they shipped for the Wii ...

The Wii could have sold more systems over its first 2 years on the market but no one really knows how much more it could have sold, and I don't think anyone believes that the Wii U has the same explosive sales potential that the Wii had in 2006. This makes estimating the Wii U kind of difficult because, while it can probably sell more than 5.5 million units by March 31st 2013, no one knows how much more it can sell.

If I was in charge of Nintendo, I would be planning on shipping 6 million units by March 31st 2013; with the possibility of shipping 5 million by the end of 2012 (using air transport to over-ship in December and January) and increasing production in December/January if necessary.

The WiiU is going to sell out as many as they can make in the first 6 months. This is especially true given the upcoming holiday. They'll be filling backorders all the way into march, if not beyond.

Does anyone know how the bundled games are being counted?

Since some games have them and some do not, it makes it tough to parse Nintendo's statement on the matter -- especially since there is a price differential on the different bundles.

Mike from Morgantown

oh boy....

He is at least funny lol!!