Spurge, you are correct. Hype in general is remarkably low and I bet Nintendo are super nervous.

The writing is on the wall.

Wii U will struggle to sell 10 million in its first year.

I dont think they even have manufactured 10 million units

Of course they haven't. They've made perhaps 2.5 million for the Holiday season.

But I said year. Sales from 18 Nov 2012 to 18 Nov 2013.

"Wii U will struggle to sell 10 million in its first year." ...  "But I said year. Sales from 18 Nov 2012 to 18 Nov 2013." 

.. well sheiit.. wait till uhmm... its second Christmas.. and perhaps till e3 2014 ... and so on.. yeh

Well, since I am a gamer to play games, I often find console launches pretty dull. Yes, Wii-U does indeed have a nice line-up, but there's nothing spectacular on the list for me (personally). I'm sure it'll differ from person to person. For some people, Mario + ZombiU + enhanced multi-plats should be enough to get them hyped.

Unless the draw of the console is enough to pull you in (i.e. improved graphics, tablet controller in this case), then I never see the reason to get hyped for something as it launches. I haven't owned a console at launch since the original Playstation, and it was my dad who bought that, not me. There just isn't enough at a launch to warrant investment/hype in my opinion unless you get something like 3 of your favourite franchises all getting new instalments, or some killer new IP's etc.

Give it time. Once Pikmin 3 is on the verge of coming out, once Bayonetta 2 is closer, once we know what first-party stuff to expect from Nintendo on the immediate horizon. That's when my hype will be picking up, and I'm sure it'll help for other people too.

Here's former VGChartz alumni Madskillz talking to some guy about Pikmin 3. Gameplay included. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP1BEIDsp8Y&feature=g-all-u

I'm mad that Pikmin 3 isn't launching with the console. Really, how hard could it be? >:O

For a game that was being developed for the Wii in 2008, it is kinda disappointing.  But it'll be worth the wait!

The problem is that Nintendo has not shown any titles worth hyping apart from Pikmin 3 (and maybe NSMBU). Ubisoft is doing a great job hyping ZombieU, but that's about it.

Given that pre-orders are great despite Nintendo evidently deliberately pushing releases forward to keep a flow of games throughout 2013, I really don't think hyping the console too much is necessary though.

I don't know how much truth there is to this, but check out this story: http://www.gamespot.com/news/nintendo-confident-wii-u-will-sell-this-holiday-6399046

Here's a quote:

"Nintendo tends to release too many titles at the launch of a hardware system and as a result suffers a drop in new games for quite some time after launch, and for the Wii U launch, we are being very careful not to let it happen," he said. "Fortunately, third-party publishers overseas are launching many titles for us this time, and we were able to push back the release of some of the titles that we had originally intended to release as launch titles until next year."

So this might explain the Pikmin 3 delay.