When New Super Mario Wii came out the Wii was almost at it's pick, there were tons of other games to choice from (including Wii Sports), people did not bought a Wii because of NSMB Wii. the system already had tons of games, and most people just added the game in their collection (there's also the bundle). 

NSMB Wii U doesn't have that advantage, at least not yet. 

listen i will bet you 6 months of sig control if if any of the mario franshises sell better then GC, n64 levels on wiiu, you guys don't seem to understand motion controls sold the wiiu, not nintendo games, just look at N64 GC and now wiiu, but ok, lets keep on pretending nintendo games are a holy grail above everything else and 2 great nintendo games a year will save the system.

You sound mad. I not going to accept that bet because we already had one in place.

But anyway. Yes, motion controls sold the Wii, and that's exactly my point, most people did not buy NSMB Wii because of the game itself, they already bought the system for Wii Sports or other motion control game, so when Nintendo shows up with a new Mario game a lot of people jump on the boat. Not even Nintendo fans buy a new console solely because of a 2D Mario game (myself included), the game simple does not justify the price of a new console, and that's where the extremely good legs come from, people buy a Nintendo console console for X game and see a NSMB game and buy it. 

The franchise is really big, some may consider it a system a seller, but I personally don't think so. Like I said many times it has extremely good legs and I don't think that will change. And if this franchises are not popular anymore how do you explain Mario Kart 7 and Mario 3D Land sales?

I'll post this again in here for those who missed it:

Nintendo shipped 3million in Wii U's first quarter... respectable number actually... till you realize Nintendo realizes they overshipped and didn't meet their expectations on top of that so they lower their estimates to 4mil total after it's second quarter... so 1 million in 3 months...

Possible? Well considering Wii U only sold 120k in 2 months and will sell similarly in it's 3rd month then in US alone it will sell a measly 180k in 3 months. Add Mexico and Canada you get 200k... We know Europe is worse than NA and Japan due to Nintendo's own financials. VGC has it at 90k with another 4 weeks left... VGC has it selling 6k a week... so add another 40k for the next for weeks and you get 130k for Europe.... 330k in 2 markets. Now for Japan, famitsu and mediacrete have it selling at 173k and another 4 weeks till end of quarter. So add 40k and you get 213k in Japan... Nintendo will sell less than 543k at it's current pace. Even if games raise I don't see it being much more than another 50k...

Now, considering Nintendo will ship less than they sell to reduce the overstock from Holiday sales they will probably miss their revised shipment by about 400k.

So in the first half woth of fiscal year the Wii U is on the market Nintendo will ship about 3.6mil and sell through about 2.6mil (Which is funny because this is what VGC has it at right now... Which I'm assuming is from them overtracking NA by 200k in Dec.

Now, how much will it sell in it's second half of the year? Bet it's less than 2.6mil. Wii U will sell less than 5mil by Sept.

Now people really expect Mario, which has always been popular since it's inception, will increase it's sales by how much? Let's be realistic here. The Wii U will not touch the Wii on any level. Why do I expect Wii U to go back to pre-Wii levels? Well because that's really Nintendo's market cap. The Wii captured a new audience which won't be back to any system this gen. Wii U will be lucky to reach NES level of sales. Especially when you realize it's tracking below Nintendo's weakest system to date.

You do realize that almost all consoles (PS3, Vita, 360, 3DS) underpreforms their first year? So your logic applies to pretty much every single console in history. When I think about it the only exceptions where companies didn't lowered their estimates during their first year were the PS2 and the Wii.

@bold: Would you please link to poster actually saying the Wii U will sell the same numbers as the Wii? Every since the Wii U announcement I have only seen like 2 or 3 poster saying that the system will sell the same. Every sane person here (including Nintendo fans) know the system will never touch Wii numbers (unless a miracle happens).

Also you haven't respond the question as to why MK 7 and Mario 3D Land sold so well (and are still selling).

nice suger coating there, both GC and xbox sold much better then wiiu first 3 months on npd, the xbox almost doubled its sales, the 360 was extremely supply constrained till april 06, ps3 was 599$ and vita and 3ds are not consoles, while were at it, vita will probably never sell over 20 million. if you wanna ignore the reason why they start off slow then fine wiiu is selling bad just as those consoles did, but the wiiu momentum is much worst then both those consoles, there selling double the amount, and then you have a huge problem with europe where  wiiu games can't even crack the top 40 for the past 2 months is basically dead in europe and then third party's are not really supporting the system.

And the Wii U sold more units in 4 months than the PS3 and the 360 (the PS3 not so much here because the numbers in the article do not include Europe sales), and the 360 didn't had supply constraint, people were on the fence because of the RROD fiasco plus not really most have games (things stared to change when Gears of Wars launched one year after the 360 launch). 

You can pretty much summarize consoles launch like this: 

360 - RROD and no games

PS3 - $599 and no games

3DS - "too expensive" and no games

Vita - same as 3DS

Wii U - no marketing and no games 

The pattern is pretty obvious, consoles (yes I'm including the 3DS and Vita here) sell because of games, if there are non, then people will simple aren't going to buy it. 

And about the Wii U momentum, how can we really measure that when there are simple no games since launch? This week Lego and Monster Hunter will launch so we will see if those 2 games help the hardware sales (hint: not by much). Now, if 3D Mario nor Mario Kart (plus other 1st party games) don't do any significant in terms of sales then we will know for sure the Wii U will share the same faith as the N64 and GC. Will that happen? imo no, why? because those franchises are very popular (the 3DS game sales reflect that). I could be wrong though, but as of right now, unless you are speculating you CAN'T be sure that a Mario Kart or 3D Mario won't make the system sell.

fact is 360 was heavily supply contrained constraint so was the wii, they would were selling way over retail on ebay for months.

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/NPD_November_2005

http://www.gamespot.com/news/npd-december-sales-down-4-percent-607000-360s-sold-6142565?

I said it won't even come close to the Wii's sales. I didn't say people were claiming it would match Wii's sales. But people have said (less so now with reality sinking in) that the Wii U will sell well being close to matching the Wii's sales. I don't think I need to trudge through last years threads to find any.

Also, yeah... Ps3 and 360 sold about 5million their first year on the market. I was really being generous saying under 5mil for the Wii U... more likely than not it will be closer to 3.8mil. I just wanted to leave some breathing room for myself. I never said my logic didn't apply to those systems but it doesn't mean the Wii U is fine right now. And the Wii U is not suffering from either of the problems the 360 and Ps3 suffered from. High price, Japan not wanting 360, and supply constrained

First of all, and I already pointed this out, VGC has Wii U overtracked MAJORLY. VGC overtracked Wii U in US alone by 200k units in Dec. Wii U hasn't sold through 2.6mil yet. They MIGHT reach that number at the end of March.

Lastly, you are flat out wroing about the launches.