Its sales so far point to no, you are way off the mark.

You know things are going bad when you have nintendo fans creating threads to JUSTIFY their purchase lol. There is no reason to really own a wiiu as of right now. No compelling sofware to justfy a $350 purchase, bad online ecosystem, and apparently lack of third party support? (We'll know within 1yr)

Nails go into the coffin if the current sales data continues for a few more months. If sales flatline and LAG behind PS3/360 then why would ANY third party give a rats ass about the wiiu. There is no reason to develop for an underperforming next-gen console that can't capture an audience reaction or manage to OUTSELL the last gen competitors.

Let's deal with reality here. The lead up to the wiiu launch was a mess. The announcement caused the stock to plunge, E3 2012 caused the stock to fall, and the launch of the wiiu saw nintendo's stock fall yet again. This is NOT normal. This could be a PS3 launch situation, although different circumstances, but nintendo doesnt have any brand strength to lean on like Sony did. Nor do they have wide third party support.Facts are facts.

#GetWithIt

Your beginning sentence ruins your credibility. Why would Ninty believe what you claim? Ninty made the WiiU to appeal to Ninty fans, people interested in Ninty games, and the expanded audience. Not ps3/360 gamers, its time to accept the fact Ninty isn't interested in focusing on "hardcore" gamers.

What threads? By the way the WiiU is outpacing them so get your facts straight. Things will look even worse for them when it launches in Japan. Nothing to fall back on lol, last time I checked the 3DS underperformed and Ninty saved it. The Vita underperformed and still continues to do so lol, what great brand Sony has lol.

If the Wii U fails, the handheld market they have will be the buffer for it like the GC days, also, remember the Virtual Boy? They got rid of that shit FAST! They most likely have a backup plan if nothing else.

True, that one on GC didn't sell 33 million, but that was about 10 years ago, more recently Mario Kart is coming off a 33 million seller.  A lot of how Mario Kart U and all Mario Wii-U games will sell DOES depend on how many U's are sold.  As far as attach rate goes NSMBU had like a 75% attach rate for the first week in US sales which was an awesome start.

Also, some people say the GameCube wasn't a success, but it was profitable for Nintendo.  They made money on the system which is a success business-wise and paved the way for the Wii and U.  At this point noone knows exactly how many Wii-U's will sell or whether it finished 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in the 8th Gen, but I have a feeling it will be profitable for Nintendo since they're only taking a small hit on each console sold but make that up with just 1 game purchased.

Gamecube sold 400k in its european launch and wii u did way less, you are correct.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/7368

I think I remember GC selling something like 600k in its NA launch. If that is correct, then you are once again absolutely correct. If someone knows a link with more accurate information, feel free to correct me.

Wii U is doing way worse than GC.

Some good points. At least they still have some major IP's - COD, Batman, Tekken, Mario etc - being released on their system with great graphics so it's not all to bad.

They lost a lot of third party support around 2010 onwards but it's not impossible to get that back and it seems like they have a decent line-up for a console that's a few weeks old.

It was going to be difficult to match Wii's pace but even with a slower start it I think it will eventually start to catch on to the public.

Just say 2D Mario, he wont have a reply to that.

I think if the Wii U fails, it's far more concerning to the industry as a whole than just Nintendo. Nintendo at least has proven they can sustain even poor sales, as they profited even from the dismal performance of the Gamecube. However, the industry is going to see major decline without a Nintendo console to help bring in the mass market audience. Remember, the Wii was a massive success and the industry as a whole STILL remained stagnant and even reached a slight decline. Imagine what it would have been like without it? Nintendo needs make the Wii U successful because they are the ones who can keep gaming open to the masses.

God knows Sony hasn't been able to do it since the PS2, with their expensive hardware and niche games, and MS hasn't really done it aside from Kinect and Halo, the former of which they have shown they are not serious about supporting. With rising development costs especially from the Sony and MS side of things, and the state the economy is in, people better hope Nintendo does well, as they are the only ones who have been able to keep gaming relevent to the mainstream over the past 8 years or so. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we are in the early stages of an '83 Atari style collapse in the games industry.