My  point was that a comparison between the two is not necessarily invalid.  I'm not saying that a comparison between the two is automatically correct, either. Indeed, what most people are doing when comparing the 3DS to the Wii U is merely positing the possibility, not inevitability, of the Wii U following suit.  You can examine what caused the sales of the 3DS and see if they might apply to the Wii U (and, since the 3DS's price point and software content were adjusted, the essentials, all the more reason to at least hint at a connection to the Wii U's sale, should it do the same changing) and question if it will, but it should not be dismissed out of hand, I think.

Also, I do not think the difference between handhelds and homes are as vast as the BMW to KIA, or Farmville to COD.

If you have redefined the meaning of "rocky launch" to the point that the PS3's does not fit your definition, you have done something wrong.

You're cherrypicking definitions and numbers to tell yourself that the Wii U's launch was worse than the PS3's. Oh, it took less time to reach a weekly low point lower than the PS3's. That's nice. It doesn't change the fact that the Wii U has sold more consoles LTD than the PS3 had in the same period. You know, how normal people measure launch sales: with actual cumulative sales, not with weekly averages of an arbitrary mid-launch-period set of weeks.

Wii U LTD in the US after 15 weeks: ~1,063,000
PS3 LTD in the US after 15 weeks: 975,622

I know those first two weeks the PS3 had are troublesome for some people. Let's give it 17, then: 1,028,680

Not to mention Japan, since you're focusing solely on NA here. *Gee, I wonder why that could be...*

Wii U LTD in Japan after 13 weeks: 806,691
PS3 LTD in Japan after 13 weeks: 637,595

You didn't drag handhelds into the debate, you dragged them out of it because they didn't mesh with your pretty Wii U / PS3 comparison. The reason you used to exclude them from the conversation was silly. The same problems plaguing the 3DS and PS Vita launches were causing trouble for the Wii U at launch: notably, the problem of convincing people who already have gaming devices (smartphones) to buy a new device meant solely for playing games.

Total sales are not the only way of defining a console's success at launch. But being this is a sales site, the article you posted is about sales, the chart they posted only shows sales, and this whole discussion has been about sales, I rather thought that was the focus here. Nonetheless, you can also measure a console's success by how much profit it makes for its company. We don't have exact data for this, but given Sony was in the red for several years after the PS3's launch, I think it's safe to say they didn't necessarily consider the launch a "success" in that fashion.

I didn't say the price only factors into revenue, just that it factors more into those, which I stand by. Certainly the price affects sales. Know what else affects sales? Software (2 month drought). Market strength (...poor). Competition (mobile devices). You didn't factor these into the Wii U launch the same way you factored price into the PS3 launch -- because you can't. We don't know how the Wii U would have sold in 2006, or with a decent software lineup in January, or at a higher price. Simply stating that the Wii U sold more units than the PS3, BUT the PS3 cost more so it's LIKE it sold better, is disingenuous. You give the PS3 a handicap (its price) to make it seem like a stronger product at launch than the Wii U. The Wii U also has handicaps. We can either disregard all such handicaps and show that the Wii U sold better, or factor every handicap into the situation and not even know what the hell we're looking at anymore.

How did that work out for N64 and gamecube bothe selling less than 35mil?

Their franchises are more popular that they were back in the day. Mario Kart 64 and Double Dash sold 9.87m and 6.95 respectively, while MK Wii sold 33.51 (yes, it was bundle but the difference is still extremely huge). Mario Galaxy 1 almost sold the same as Mario 64 and 4m units more than Sunshine. There also 2D Mario games which are known to have extremely good legs. Finally there's the "Wii series" which is extremely big.

So this argument doesn't make any sense because some Nintendo franchises are waaaay more popular than they were back in the N64 and GC eras.

Their franchises are more popular that they were back in the day. Mario Kart 64 and Double Dash sold 9.87m and 6.95 respectively, while MK Wii sold 33.51 (yes, it was bundle but the difference is still extremely huge). Mario Galaxy 1 almost sold the same as Mario 64 and 4m units more than Sunshine. There also 2D Mario games which are known to have extremely good legs. Finally there's the "Wii series" which is extremely big.

So this argument doesn't make any sense because some Nintendo franchises are waaaay more popular than they were back in the N64 and GC eras.

That's simply untrue. Each Mario in NES era was over 10mil. The pack in sold 40mil. You are going to be sorely dissapointed if you are banking on Wii U to sell more than 50mil all on the hopes of Mario.