Certainly the Wii U is in a deep slump. My biggest objection was with your implication that it had a worse launch than the PS3, which is not by any means true. If you really want to factor in all of the handicaps, by all means do so. The economy. Inflation. The prevalence of mobile devices (which absolutely has an affect on home console sales if it has one on handheld sales). The lack of software.

If your focus is really on the future of the console, you won't mind me saying that it has already begun its recovery as per February's sales. And by the fact that it does not have zero retail releases this month, as it had the past two.

Really, your handheld argument annoys me to no end. If handhelds and home consoles are completely different markets and shouldn't be compared whatsoever, why do you say "the handheld market is especially challenged now by tablest & phones"? Surely handhelds are a completely different market from mobile devices and the two are incomparable, just as handhelds and home consoles are.

From a statistical point of view I'd say that saying the Wii U is recovering is a massive jump to a bit of a wild conclusion. A slight increase in sales =/= recovery. We really don't have enough data to suggest if it's recovering or plateuing at ~30k units. 

Handhelds and smartphones offer portable gaming. GLHF doing that with a 360/PS3/Wii U. The main selling point of the Vita/PSP/3DS is the fact that the systems are entirely self contained. That is unquestionable. The fact is standard consoles are static, not portable. You wouldn't compare an RV to a house, so why compare portable gaming to static gaming?

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

Speaking of cherrypicking...  I like how you were diligent enough to correct for the undertracking in February, while leaving in the overtracking in 2012.  Your figure is 55k higher than the NPD figure.  Per NPD from November-February, the PS3 sold 1058.7k  the Wii U sold 1008k.  Of course the PS3 has one more week in that comparison since it launched earlier, but it is unlikely that the Wii U will sell 50k+ the first week of march.

And the fact that most time spent playing portable consoles is spent at home? And the fact that the Wii U also has its own screen and battery, and can replicate that "portable-at-home" experience?

Differences in the consoles themselves aside, they share the same market. Just use your head and figure that someone who previously bought a Wii might now be satisfied by Angry Birds and Cut the Rope. Someone who was entranced by Kinect Sports may have discovered Fruit Ninja on their phone and stopped caring about dedicated consoles.

Everyone stop comparing automobiles; if everyone in the country owned a laptop, how would that affect PC sales?

Did VGChartz not adjust for NPD numbers in 2012? I legitimately didn't know that, wasn't cherrypicking.

Did VGChartz not adjust for NPD numbers in 2012? I legitimately didn't know that, wasn't cherrypicking.

Laptops have affected PC sales because most people don't need a tower PC anymore.

That's all I need to hear. A laptop does everything a PC does, but portable. A smartphone doesn't play the same exact games as a console, but it provides the same service on the go. Admitting that laptops and PCs occupy the same market but denying that smartphones and consoles do is nonsense.

And yeah, like anybody was going to buy a Wii U for Call of Duty.

You're really on the ball, you know.

And people here are actually somewhat pleased by Wii U sales, because they're bad but not as bad as feared.

Also that data looks like it was from last NPD, not this one. The Wii U weekly sales were around 17k this month.