VGChartz forum members are a collective flop for not meeting expectations in the realm of predicting hardware sales.

While I'm pessimistic about WiiU's long term success I have said consistently that we really won't have a good sense of WiiU's popularity until March. Right now, it's selling as well as could be hoped, but not as well as the Wii which was a different beast than the average console launch.

WiiU is no Wii and never will be. I said it before and say it again, it's the antithesis of the Wii. It's also two years too late to remain relevant. MS/Sony and moreover - Android (and iOS?) based consoles will quickly make WiiU look like a cheap (and overly expensive) wannabe. Tech-wise Wii was in the same boat, but Wii offered an experience the other consoles couldn't. WiiU's tablet will be commonplace with Android-based consoles like Project Shield, WikiPad, and The Edge amoungst others likely to still be announced. They will be true gaming tablets, truly portable, capable of far more than the WiiU will ever be from day one and many being full blown tablets, will be more mass market friendly than the WiiU. WiiU would have been a success from 2010-2014.

However, getting back to the OP - WiiU sales do not need to meet our expectations to be a success, imo, it needs to generate Nintendo decent returns for it's life. Currently it's a money-losing system but Nintendo's hope is longterm (like PS3's/360 before it). Considering the billions Sony/MS lost last/this gen, and the fact better tablet based consoles will shortly be available, I do not see a better fate for WiiU but that is strictly opinion.

Facts are - WiiU is selling well based on previous console launches (except in Europe). So far, those are the only facts available. What we expected, is irrelevant.