My faith is restored......I think. 2013 is definitely and purely between Microsoft and Sony now.

Nice spin, guys. Its still far too early (this week still includes Christmas Eve), we can judge in 4 months time.

I never expected Nintendo Land to get near the success of Wii Sports, though then again few games have. I do agree Nintendo needs a game like Wii Sports to ignite interest and again reach the mass market, but a sequel to Wii Sports itself IMO won't do it. They'll instead need a game LIKE Wii Sports that carries the same spirit, and brings a new audience.

I'm pretty convinced at this point that no amount of sales for a Nintendo console will convince third parties. Wii at one point outsold the HD twins COMBINED by a large amount and one month sold 4.3 million units, yet still nothing changed. So sales don't really matter in that respect as third parties won't support them regardless. I've given up on third parties on Nintendo consoles, and I have a feeling Nintendo has too. Luckily for Nintendo their games are strong enough that they don't really need third party support. They've shown they can sell 100 million without it.

Exactly. Nintendo better pander to the casuals because they aren't going to win any hardcore battle with Microsoft and Sony. They played it smart and came out on top with their last console. I suggest they follow suit and commercialize the hell out of it.

Theres no spin. Even on Bonus Round they were talking about waiting on Nintendos big trick up their sleeve because the majority of the primary buyers of the Wii U  are hardcore Nintendo fans. We need to see what their plans are for the casuals or else.

What type of convincing should Nintendo give to the third parties? I really want to hear this, because it will take a complete paradigm shift. Nintendo is and for the better party of a long time will be in Nintendo land and most devs are not and do not want to be.

The spin is assuming these sales are post-holiday and as such the pattern will hold throughout the year, when this is not the case. You also forget that the Wii U is trending very similarly to the Wii everywhere bar Europe (dunno what's happened here, this is a problem), and so much higher overall than the PS360. This is not unusual, far from it. It's better than normal, if anything. But with poor sales in Europe, it can cause concern. When this is rectified I see little to stop the Wii U, even if it falls short of its predecessor.

Nintendo could carry a platform on its own with the Wii. But that was when games like Zelda TP, and the motion controls were super hyped. I have to say that I don't trust Nintendo's competence to replicate the Wii phenomenon on their own, at least not with the Wii U. Aonuma's direction is making the Zelda brand slowly rot away and other franchises aren't doing much better. To me it seems like Twilight princess and Skyward Sword has really hurt the Zelda brand. The minimal effort and lack of new content in the 2D Mario games are hurting that series too. Smash Bros is being outsourced. 3D Mario being mutated to try and replace 2D Mario is making it appeal to even fewer people. And don't get me started on Metroid.

I remember, that even though analysts and industry twats hated the Wii since the very beginning, regular people talked about it a lot, and I saw incredible potential. My gut feeling about the Wii U when it was revealed was very different, and regular people aren't talking about it, and there is this confusion about it being a new controller.

I am very worried about Nintendo's future with the consoles, and it's a damn shame because I don't think the third party industry would have survived if they ignored another Wii phenomenon. One thing that the Wii U does right though is being controller-agnostic, that is going to make it's sucess all about the games, third parties can make games for the controller they want, and Nintendo could theoretically re-enter the Wii path on it should they come to their senses. I think the performane of Wii Fit U will be extremely important.

On Bonus Round most of the analysts were saying its mostly the hardcore fans buying the consoles right now but the marketing needs to change.  Anyway, lets see how these Nintendo Wii level sales pan out, because without the Wii mote being the main attraction with Wii Sports and something gimmicky, they will not see the same results. 

Obviously, PS3's numbers were twice of the WiiU's, it's kinda obvious it would drop harder.