Maybe if I make a 3 sentence OP it will get over 100 responses...

To answer your question; why not? Isn't the Vita failing as well?

People can talk about whatever they want if they are reasonable about it.

See. I made a longer response than you did an OP so I can complain all that I want about whatever I want.

Because... let's wait for Mario 3D, Mario Kart, 2 Zelda(s), Yoshi and so on... and Wii U will be more than fine. :)

Where did you get this information? According to VGC the DS is approaching 1 million more units than the PS2. So are you saying the PS2 has sold several millions of units since VGC stopped tracking it.

When did VGC stop tracking PS2 numbers? 

EDIT- The PS2 Wikipedia page says 'Units sold - 153.6 million (as of Nov 2011)'. This is also mentioned here - - http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/111122_e.pdf 

So unless the PS2 has sold 630,000 units in little over a year the DS is officially the highest selling console.

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It's amazing how people still think this thread is completely serious.

Regarding the first half of your post, I don't see how any of that is relevant to the situation.  That argument might have held some water 2 months ago after the mediocre European launch, but not anymore.  We know that there were no supply issues.  If anything the Wii U was overshipped, not the case for the consoles you compared it to.  Delaying the Wii U until March would likely only have had a negative impact on sales.  The game issue might hold some water, but if you seriously think a few extra games at launch would cause the Wii U to sell more in 6 weeks with a March launch than 23 weeks with a November launch then I've got a bridge to sell you.  Retailer discounts could have an effect, but I'm not sure clearances to get rid of excess stock is the healthiest thing for the Wii U.

You do understand that DQX is an mmo right?  It's not going to have the same appeal as a normal DQ.  Were you confident that the 360 version of FFXI was going to sell huge numbers?  I mean after all FFX sold almost 3 million across its various releases and FFXI only sold 150k before expansions.  Also DQX was announced way before the Wii U was even known about, it just didn't get shown until later when they also announced it was coming to the Wii U.  I really have no clue why you think people would ignore DQX on Wii just so they can wait 8 months and buy a new system to play it.  Why didn't this happen for the other games on the Wii U or really any system?  Why didn't the Wii owners skip Just Dance so they could buy the Wii U version?  Remember how you thought Just Dance 4 was going to easily do 100k in the UK, and it barely did a tenth of that?

As for the rest, I don't know why you think injustice will make much of an impact.  How many people are out there that want Injustice, don't own a PS3/360/Wii U already, and would choose the more expensive Wii U as their console to play it on?  Monster Hunter could have some impact, but it didn't make a huge splash in Japan and it will be competing with the 3DS version.  If we compare it to the Wii version, after 7 weeks in Japan, it is at 20.8% of Tri.  If the same holds true for the west, that would give it about 71k in the west over 5 weeks.  Rayman, again, maybe a small bump, but it isn't a very big series.  Lego City is probably the best shot at selling some systems, but it won't be out in Japan I believe, and will have only about a month in Europe for the time we are looking at.

All of these things are coming late in the period we are looking at, and none of them are sure fire massive system sellers.  Whenever ioi gets around to updating the numbers, it will be two weeks.  We know sales were down in Japan, and they didn't look to be improving in PAL countries.  The next week there is Hokuto Musou 2 in Japan which might do something, but there is nothing in the west until Rayman at the end of February.

I had a fairly decent response written to this, but Opera decided to crash just as I was nearing the end of it. I'll give a shorthand version - it won't be as complete, but I'm not writing the whole response again.

The 360 and PS3 comparison wasn't intended to say "this proves that the Wii U is selling fine", it was intended to prove that you can't use local launch dates and assume that behaviour works the same - the European launch of the PS3 didn't happen in a vacuum.

Yes, DQX is an MMO. And recent MMOs have done quite well in Japan - Monster Hunter Tri and the Wii version of DQX have both well outperformed Final Fantasy XI (which was primarily on PC, remember). I'm not suggesting that DQX is going to be selling 4 million copies in Japan, but I certainly see it breaking the 1 million mark. Note that few games get announced for both older and newer system before the newer system launches, and usually those lack any significant benefit for the newer version - DQX for Wii U has significant benefit.

Just Dance is selling poorly on Wii U because there's no real benefit to it over the Wii version, and no other game to support it in terms of Just Dance players' interest in the system. I had failed to compensate for that issue, and for the fact that Nintendo didn't come out with more information on upcoming games in a timely manner, and thus I overestimated early sales.

Injustice isn't the system-seller, but it increases the perceived value of the system. Monster Hunter Tri is selling almost as well as Nintendo Land in Japan. You underestimate Rayman (especially given that it's the second exclusive 2D platformer for the system). Lego City will have a month and a half in both America and Europe, and I never suggested it would have a significant impact in Japan.

And what you forget is that, when a system only has three system sellers, and gets two more, even if they're weak system sellers, they'll still produce a noticeable bump in sales. Note that I never said it would produce massive numbers - we're talking 100k here, 100k there, averaged over five notable releases plus information releases. Basically, I think Nintendo's updated numbers are quite a reasonable estimate - an additional 1 million in the next two months or so, in the form of about 600k due to steady sales and another 400k due to bumps.

This post proves the thread starter and all that agreed with him as serious biased opinions. Seriously, stop giving Sony bad rep.

Sony has pretty cool devices, but their followers are so questionable that i feel unconfortable owning their systems.

Monster Hunter Tri isn't really an mmo for the most part, and it didn't sell like it did due to it's mmo-ish features.  Although for what it's worth, I don't believe DQX's system is massively different.  Of course the difference is the Monster Hunter games gained their popularity on the back of multiplayer.  I just don't see how it is logical that an 8 month old game releasing on a console with less than a tenth of the install base will sell more than the original.  The closest comparison I can think of are sports games.  Generally new consoles get a late release, they have mass appeal, and they generally are superior in some ways (though EA tends to make awful next gen versions for their series).  In that case, sports games don't usually outsell the version on the established console.  What kind of time frame do you expect a million sales?  Because by the end April NSMBU will likely be under 600k.  That's an exclusive, available at launch, and from a series that has done up to 6.5 million in Japan.  While I don't think comgnet is necessarily a good barometer for sales, it doesn't seem that the Wii U version of DQX is causing a stir there.  The barrier to enter the charts is only 35 and it is absent.  DQX Wii ended with 318 (for the USB bundle, an additional 27 for the base game) and was at 132 31 days before release.  It reached 38 points when there were still 81 days left to release.  That's a very sizable gap when you expect the Wii U release to perform better.

It wasn't only Just Dance though.  You also expected 50k for Fifa and Skylanders, and at least 10k for titles like Tank Tank Tank.  This was after the first week in Europe, so I don't think anything changed in terms of game releases between then and the end of the year that would have affected sales.  Even the best selling game, Nintendo Land, only managed 68,477.  When you scale it back to compensate for VGC overtracking the Wii U it is only 56,218.  Of course none of this has any bearing on future sales, but I think it shows your expectations for the Wii U are very unrealistic.  Even after knowing those three games sold less than 1,600 week 1 you expected them to sell another 49k/99k in the next four weeks.

Which then brings us to your last point, regarding Nintendo's estimate.  The Wii U will probably be at ~260k for the year at week 4.  Over half of that came in the first week, and part of that week actually fell in last year's quarter.  We know that the Wii U was overtracked by ~77k between Japan, the US, and Nintendo's definition of Europe.  Most of that was in the US.  That brings known sell through to 1.942 million.  If we are generous and assume none of the other areas were overtracked by VGC that means total sell through is probably 2.168 million.  That leaves 892k on the shelves at the start of this quarter, and they want to ship another 940k.  After 4 weeks there are still ~632k in the supply chain with 9 weeks to go.  Just to clear through that and have the other 940k they want to ship on shelves, they will need to start selling 70k a week each week for the rest of the quarter.  Since Rayman is the only notable game between now and mid march that seems unlikely.  There are only 5 weeks including the week Rayman releases.  If sales don't improve between now and Rayman, they will need to sell 98.4k per week in those 5 weeks.  Even if they manage that, they will have to convince retailers to take another 1 million in inventory by the end of March.  A tough prospect when as you mentioned some retailers are already having to discount the Wii U, particularly in Europe.

Of course that is looking at a worldwide perspective.  It is a little different if you break it down by region.  Depending on what percentage of "Other" Europe is, they might not see any shipments to the region in the fourth quarter.  There were 900k shipped compared to 425k sold.  Unless sales outside of Europe are very high, it seems unlikely they will even sell through the Q3 shipment by the end of Q4.  In Japan they are probably another 6 weeks (10 total) from selling through the initial shipment.  In comparison, the 3DS took 8 weeks of its second quarter in Japan to sell its initial shipment, and had a higher rate of weekly sale.  It shipped only 210k in Japan in its second quarter on sale, and 710k WW.  So, optimistically we can expect a 200k shipment in Japan and we've deduced the European shipment will likely be negligable.  That leaves us with the Americas.  If we assume the US is about 90% of the Americas, then there are ~330k left on shelves.  January sales look to be less than 70k in the US so less than 78k for the Americas.  Unless sales improve by leaps and bounds, this won't be enough to ship an additional 740k to meet their forecast.

Most of his post is inaccurate.  The Vita numbers are the only thing he portrays correctly.

The PS3 was at 3.39 million 6 months after the Japanese launch, not accounting for the staggered launch.

The 360 was at 3.29 million.

Both the Wii U and 3DS numbers he listed were the shipments for their first quarter of availability, not sales.  The 3DS in particular was incredibly overshipped.  The Wii U shipments are to Dec 31, not the date he posted, and I don't know what he is talking about with the 1.2-1.5 million.

Last I saw, Wii U was trending ahead of PS3 and 360. Has that changed? When did the WiiU become doomed?

Is this a response to Nintendo fans calling Vita doomed, or PS4/720? I haven't really been around much.

Assuming it's a response to "Vita is domed" The WiiU is currently selling nearly 50% ahead of Vita, despite the fact that Vita is a slightly older console, which means it should be having higher sales (up to its 3rd year that is).

As for the Wii 'failing' implying that Nintendo fans have no right to talk about consoles failing. The Wii is currently Nintendo's best selling home console, amongst the most profitable consoles ever realesed, currently the 3rd highest selling console of all time, and likely to hit the 2nd position eventually (or at least it was last I looked at the maths, feel free to correct me. Either way, safe to approximate it as equal 2nd, regardless of whether it ends a few 100k units ahead or behind.)

@ Aielyn. For the majority of the PS2's life, Sony counted a 'shipped' console as one leaving its factories. It didn't matter if the consoles were given out as prizes, as replacement consoles under warranty, stolen from Sony trucks before they reached the shops or whatever. Now Sony counts a console as shipped only if it reaches a retailer to be sold. The 4 million is a result of this.