The Wii as a console? No.

The Wii Remote along with rubbish motion control? Yes.

in other words the Wii became so successful that Sony fans were forced to reinterpret the success of the platform and of course with typical religious zeal they dismissed and reduced success of this platform to fad, gimmick etc.

The truth is the Wii was success it required no empty promises (Toy Story level graphics) no half truths (70 - 80 million polygons/s), no betrayals, even not instinct of sick mob (GTA, CoD), no clowns running on screen with guns (Uncharted)

It was by its very definition, an anti Playstation success and this hurts.

Yep, seems to fit the wii sales. The issue with the Wii is however there will be elements of it that sold without it being a fad. You essentially have a product with fad elements but parts of it which are not, resulting in some type of hybrid. 

Given the 2 year spike in sales and the initally quick decline, it shows the growth and beginning demise of a fad product, is novel etc, but the decline is rather slow which would be due to the fad appeal being replaced by gaming appeal. 

By this definition, every video game system could be classified as a fad.

Mike from Morgantown

Of course it was. People played games where they chopped carrots. Now I don't know about you, but why didn't they have that much fun in the kitchen? Oh, because it was a fad.

I can't say for everyone but for me it was most certainly a fad. Or at least it falls into the definition.

I saw the Wii, thought the motion controls was the most amazing thing to hit gaming and got it first. Played the console for a while after which the novelty of the controls wore off and I was looking for more amazing gaming experiences than just the Mario Kart or SSBB once a year. So I switched over to the 360 and never looked back. I have been gaming on it ever since for many years and got a PS3 recently and I use both.

The Wii unfortunately is just a dusty mess right now.

5 years isn't a fad, it's a healthy, normal console lifespan.

Every console is a fad. It's popular for 3-4 years at most and then people move on to something new. The PS2 was a fad. The DS was a fad. The NES was a fad. If they weren't fads, they would still be popular. Game consoles are designed to be fads. The only consoles that are not fads... are unsuccessful ones.

No dude, no it shouldn't - go look at the sales and unsurprisingly, your premise doesn't trump a scientific paper.

See the above - the sales actually show that the initial few years were indeed a fad. 

I would say Wii Sports and absolutely Wii Fit were fads.

I wouldn't call Wii itself a fad. It had a very successful and very typical 5 year console life. It's PS3/360 which have broken with historic console sales norms. Slower starts (due to initial high prices, and on market (without replacement) longer than any before in gaming history.

If the 8th gen ended in 2010/2011 like previous generations (That is 5 years after they began) then there would have been absolutely nothing 'fadish' about the Wii's sales. All consoles would have peaked in year three (as typical) and been replaced in year five. Wii would have just done it more successfully (thanks to the fads of Wii Sports and Wii Fit).

If Wii have dropped like a rock in 2009 they you could call it a fad. Sales have been in constant decline since 2011 (normal end for a console) and that's due to a lot of normal factors - it's outdated (SD not HD), it's gotten stale (as all consoles do), and 2010 was the last great year for Wii software-wise. And as we all know, without great software, hardware will drop.

Therefore I do not see any basis for calling Wii (the console) a fad.