Outside of the gaming community, yes it was a fad. The millions of people who bought a Wii to play Wii sports and wii fit and stopped playing after a year, treated it like it was a fad. For Nintendo gamers, no, it was just another game console that allowed them to continue playing their favorite Nintendo games.

I don't think it was, but really, who gives a shit? Does the "fad" label somehow make it less of a success? Does it magically nullify Wii's 4 years of unprecedented sales, and it's influence on gaming as a whole?

Ps1 sales in 1994 compared to Wii sales 2006. Beautiful comparison. As for my definition for a fad? It's been defined academically in an early post (If you didn't see it I don't blame you. I wouldn't want to read through all the posts either). But in the OP I gave a piece of evidence (fizzling out) as to why it was a fad. That clearly doesn't mean that it only needs to meet that criteria. I was leaving the discussion open for people to add and give their input as you can clearly see from the questions in the OP

It's entirely possible that the PS1 end-life might end up being better than Wii's but as a whole Wii and PS1 have very similar sales curves.

It most certainly wasn't a fad, unless you consider a fad to be lasting 6 years that prompted the other two platform holders to adopt motion controls. Fads aren't long lasting.

When people were claiming the Wii and motion controls to be a fad they were expecting the excitement to die down over a year or so. NOBODY called it a fad after 2008 because it became clear that it was a trend and not a fad in any way.

I'm not attacking your definition of a fad, you're free to define it how you want. I didn't quote sales numbers for a reason, I only spoke of sales trends i.e. sales exploding then after a 5 year run dying off very quickly... that's the question I'm asking... does this trend constitute a fad in your eyes?

Bold: Not at all... I've said many times through this thread all fads are successes but not all successes are fads. I don't see why people are so concerned with it being labeled a fad or not. I have always thought of it as a fad and I have had this discussion numerous times this gen. I made a comment in another thread about it being a fad and it gave me the idea to see if views have changed now that a new system has came out for Nintendo and the dust has settled. I thought it might have a decent amount of discussion but at the same time I didn't think it would prove to be such a hot button topic like it was in the past (ya know, since the Wii is old news, for lack of a better phrase, now.) But it appears I was wrong, It started well (on the second page I believe I was saying people who said no it wasn't had good points) but turned out ridiculous.

So you're making the argument that the factors that made the Wii successful were inherently incapable of longterm success? I don't see how you can make that argument. Take a look at the Wii's biggest games: Wii sports, Wii Play, Wii fit, Mario Kart, Super Mario Bros, Smash Bros, and a slew of other smaller games. Nintendo released these games and the majority of the Wii's games within the first few years of it's lifespan. Their support began to drop in 2009 and was essentially nonexistent post 2011. Clearly, the drop of Wii popularity was a direct result of Nintendo's lack of support.

The main types of games that made the Wii successful vanished late in the Wii's life. Therefore, it's impossible to know how they would have done if Nintendo continued to release them through the end of the Wii's life. As I said before, the data suggests that the Wii dropped as a result of less support from Nintendo. From that, it's reasonable to conclude that if Nintendo didn't drop support, then the Wii's sales wouldn't have dropped so hard, therefore not being a fad. But again, we have no way of knowing since those games stopped releasing. 

You need to demonstrate that games like Wii Sports, Mario Kart, etc. were incapable of seeing longterm success if Nintendo had continued releasing them. Otherwise, it's more reasonable to conclude that those types of games would have helped the Wii late in it's life. As for your question, "Did Nintendo slow support for the Wii due to being stupid or because they could tell the novelty was wearing off?" Well, many people, including Nintendo fans, would believe the former. The question is impossible to answer though; I can't read Nintendo's mind. And even if I could, that doesn't mean Nintendo is right. 

Also this:

"they made a business decision to stop support a console that started showing weak consumer support."

It's the other way around. The console started showing weak consumer support as Nintendo gradually put out less and less games that made the Wii successful in the first place. That doesn't make the console a fad - if by fad, you're referring to a product that was successful on novelty rather than quality - no, that's just product that stopped getting the quality required to continue to see success.

I really don't see the difference here. We don't know yet how long the Wii will sell, as it is not discontinued yet (Nintendo even released a new model). But the main point is, that both made record-breaking sales in their days and now sell by far not at the same levels. The only difference you make here, is that the PS2-fad lasted two years longer. But you stated it yourself, some fads even stayed a decade before losing momentum. So the somewhat longer time the PS2-fad was holding does not make a big difference for this discussion in my opinion.

Virtual boy was a fad & failure. Some will argue wii was a successful fad, but I still think its a preview of the future. IMO, the future will be Wii + Kinect + Sega 32x = interactive movie gaming, where the player is immersed into the game as the star.