Your totally right, 360 didnt have PS brand behind it, mainland europe and Japan working in their favor, not to mention Live Gold prices, RROD, and a lack of retail AAA exclusives. Your so right that 360 was at a disadvantage, its amazing how long its holding out :P

I had huge reservations about it from the start.  In 2004/5 Nintendo was wondering how to get more people to play.  They realized that the dual analog controllers were a huge discouragement for new people to begin playing (kids excepted).  Their solution was the wiimote.   It was admittedly an imperfect solution but it accomplished what Nintendo was after - grew their user base tremendously.    So to see them return to the dual analog controller (albeit with a touch screen attached) was a shock and disappointment. I knew instantly it would flop.  Casuals who didn't like the dual analog before certainly wouldn't like a bigger/bulkier and even more interface confusing one now and core gamers aren't going to take too kindly to the huge touchscreen either.   At that time it wasn't clear then how much the wiimote would continue to be supported though, or price, power, etc. 

Once it became clear that WiiU would be over-priced (because of the gamepad), underpowered (because of the cost of the gamepad), and lacked any killer core or casual launch title I knew it was doomed to Gamecube-like sales. Nintendoland fails because, while the appeal of the wiimote/Wii Sports was obvious, Nintendoland has to be played to see it's appeal and casual's won't want to play with the dual analog gamepad to begin with.    If they were willing to use dual analog they'd get a 360/PS3 with a s---load more games instead.  

WiiU (IMO) is completely and utterly screwed without an audience beyond the Nintendo faithful and I expected them to support WiiU better than what we're seeing.   I imagine once 3D Mario, Kart, Zelda, Smash, etc release the faithful will pick it up but now I'm starting to think it's sales will be closer to 10m as it's 3rd party support will likely be even worse than Gamecube's and GC at least had better tech and lower price than PS2.   WiiU will be substancially weaker than it's competition and likely just as expensive - possibly more, depending on how big a loss MS will take and how big a discount a 2yr XBL subscription will offer.

As a Wii fan I did feel NSMBWii was the last offering Nintendo made for people 'like me'.  Wii Party was 'meh', Wii Motion Plus sucked, and while I personally enjoyed Metroid: Other M and Kirby I'm sure most casuals or semi-core/casuals like me probably didn't look twice at them. Just Dance/Zumba Fitness saved Wii from falling even faster and further than it did.   And frankly Dance Central/Kinect is much better than those.