sure..but as you said..the 'ps1' era yeah maybe. But that's not the same anymore. The gaming world has changed. Now if your example was more recent, let's say previous gen I would have agreed. So the market is not behaving odd at all. The known specs are underwhelming to many, online account being bound to the system is unappealing to many etc etc. 

People do want to see a good generational jump from the next gen systems. I'm not knowledgeable about it but didn't the PS1 show a clear jump over the previous generation of consoles?

When the Wii was announced I was 100% certain that I would pick it up at launch. While I have to admit that the motion controls were a big part of it, It wasn't just that, there was a lot of games to look forward to.

At E3 2006, Nintendo announced the following games for the Wii: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Super Mario Galaxy, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Disaster: Day of Crisis, Project H.A.M.M.E.R., and Excite Truck.

Compare that to the lineup of games announced for WiiU and it's no wonder I don't feel any urge to buy the WiiU right now.

hmmm....

you guys may be right.

Yeah, the PS1 did present a clear gap with the main players of the gen before it, and packed a load of potential tapped into later in its lifecycle.

With the WiiU it's never been so unclear as to how much more powerful it is from the prior gen, in some cases being outperformed by it.

But the principle of what I was saying remains, that it's the games that sold the Playstation, as well as the fact that it played disks, which was in a sense revolutionary. And the Sony name to boot helped for sure.

None of that is in Nintendo's favor right now, but I'm thinking if games were there, wouldn't the console's power dominance be less of an issue in the vocal core community of the internet?

Because that's how the business works. A lot of aspects of being successful is to understand your competition and how counter attack their moves, it happens everyday in business companies.

OT: with the obvious announcement of Sony and MS new consoles, Nintendo HAS to come strong in the software department, they have to impress people with a lot of games. If they announced the games too early, people will kinda lose interest in the game when they finally come out (this will depend on the game of course), hype is one of the most important aspect of video games. I do expect the next Nintendo Directs and E3 to be huge, with lots of games to be announce, at least this is what Nintendo needs to do, otherwise they will need to cut the price of the Wii U just like the 3DS. 

It's always about the games in the end. Nintendo has a huge whealth of beloved IPs, it was a big mistake not to leverage it at E3 2012. They are trying to convince people to shell out $350, you can't do that with only NSMBU and Nintendo Land.

I know ToS, but what I'm trying to say in OP, and what I was telling mugen is that I'm thinking they may have made a smart move in that, instead of launching the console with a punch, they're making a post-launch y2  bang in time for the launch of the twins' successors. Hence the gap, hence the absolute silence.

It's just a theory though, but I was supporting the reasonable quality of such a strat by pointing to the 360's success as of y2, and the same for the PS2.

Nintendo needs to announce some games now, not in May/June. I mean it's like 20 confirmed and unreleased titles for the system. They should announce a few new games at a Nintendo Direct as soon as possible, but save a few surprises for E3. The release schedule for the Wii U is a barren wasteland, and that's not going to attract many potential buyers.

N64 might have been better than the ps1 but the ps1 was still waaaay better than the snes.

the wiiU, whether true or just percieved, doesn't feel like a significant jump of the ps360's in people's homes for the last 6+ years.  there is a huge difference there.  i'm not droping $300 on next, last gen technology.  i might not always "upgrade" to bleeding edge tech but i do by new things i certainly expect perceivable, significant improvements.  otherwise, what's the point?

this is exactly why a small jump for MSony is a terrible idea.  improvements aren't limited to just graphics but i need to have some feature(s) to hang my hat and say to myself - damn i wish i had that.

Okay, now what if the U had games you wanted. Actually, what games do you want in general, dev agnostic, name like 3 or 5 franchises you're looking forward to or would like to see.

If that came out on U, what would that do to your need for graphical improvement?