Personally, I'm with Max on that point.   The market has changed.

Sony themselves said "The living room is no longer the centre of the [gaming] universe - the gamer is".   This is fundimentally true.  As such I expect experiences that follow the gamer wherever they go will slowly take over from home based consoles.

Currently that's smartphone/tablets but could become game tablets or cloud-based services that you can play on any device seemlessly.

That's still a ways off but certainly before the end of this new gen.   I'm guessing 30m WiiU, 40-50m for PS3 and 50-60m for 720 (or maybe reversed, will have to see MS's actual offer and it's appeal to the mass market).  

Toss in SteamBox, Ouya and Smart TV that could themselves become gaming systems (cloud) and this is a whole different ballgame than it was in 2006.

there are many reasons why the WiiU's sales are lackluster. the fault comes from nintendo's strategy as a whole. they made many mistakes with the WiiU and its really showing now. some of those mistakes can not be fixed though

Nintendo has a lot more brand recognition nowadays as a result of the success of the Wii and DS, so therefore their addressable market is larger for Wii U than that of the GameCube.  Wii U is also designed to be a mainstream device that appeals to people who play games and those that do not.  GameCube was purely a games console.  Wii U is much more than just a games console, as are the other other platforms currently on the market.

I agree that the console market will shrink in the 8th gen but what you're predicting is a 50% drop from the 7th gen which in my opinion is way too drastic.

Lack of Games -I do think it lacks games, first and third party for that matter. Even going forward, I don't see the wii u being able to compete or match the 3rd party support of the ps4 and nextbox.

Over-Priced - Not really, once all the other next gen consoles rolls outs, wii u will prob end up the cheapest, but also the least powerful.

Under-Powered - It does seem under powered compared to ps4 specs and rumored ones for the nextbox. It is not as bad as wii to xbox360, but definitely weaker then the other next gen consoles.

Gamepad - This can go either way, some people will love it and others just won't.

Lack of Focus - Nintendo does seem to be trying to cater to both casuals and core gamers at the same time.

Lack of Marketing-It's just terrible.

Actually I'm predicting the market will be bigger than ever in history but also more spread out than it's been since the first gen (Atari, Intellivison, ColecoVision, BallyAstrocade, Vetrex, Spectravision - a lot of people had vision it seems - etc.). 

Android devices are already set to out-power Wii and considering they bump up yearly will soon match PS3/360.   Once they get there, I expect 3rd parties to basically port every game over and devices like Ouya and WikiPad will become more legitimate contenders.  

SteamBox will also cut into console's market to some unknown degree.   It's not that the market is shrinking, it's that games will become increasingly system agnostic and the advantage of owning a home console will progressively be outshined by the vesatility of other platforms.

I'm also expecting Nintendo will launch one more console (the last dedicated game console - likely a handheld/home hybrid) after WiiU which will further cut into PS4/720 as I expect Sony/MS to go to purely online based services (gaikai/XBL) and will leave PS4/720 to compete with Nintendo's 9th gen system.

I think it's two of those.

Lack of games: Pretty clear, and sales will certainly pick up when more games start to hit. But many consoles, significantly the Wii itself, have had good early sales even without fantastic early lineups.

To recreate the success of the Wii, it would have needed to focus more on attracting the casual gamers, and having the average non-gaming consumer interested in picking one up for Christmas. There can be no denying that they kind of failed with this one. I feel like a lot of their potential base has gone to mobile and Facebook gaming, and they need to do more to win those sorts of people back.

Actually, what I really would have liked was for their prediction to come true and people to move from the lighter casual games to deeper and more interesting titles, but unfortunately that never really came to pass, so they're kind of stuck. It'll abate a little with more games available, but it's never going to hit Wii levels, and perhaps not even PS3 and 360 levels.

I think ppl just don't know what they are missing. I watch movies while i'm doing dishes now. Streamed from my pc.

People have been able to do that long before the WiiU. They have tablets. Before that people had a TV in the dining room or wherever they eat, which is usually right next to the kitchen. Watching tv while doing household chores like dishes is nothing new or exclusive to the WiiU.

OT: I voted the game pad.

For me, the lack of power.