So, people love to compare Nintendos situation with the Wii U to the 3DS. Well, let's look at it then.

3DS 4 weeks before price drop averaged 159k per week.

The Wii U 4 weeks before price drop averages 87k per week.

The 3DS was selling at that rate for about 6 months before Nintendo announced the price drop.

The Wii U is selling at that rate for about 10 months before the price drop announcement.

The 3DS had a 2 week notice.

The Wii U has over 3 weeks.

The 3DS average sales in 2011 was 159k before the price drop.

The Wii U's average sales in 2013 is 36k.

So the 3DS sold 86k the week before the announcement. The week of the announcement it sold 63k. The week before the price drop 41k (Think about that for a second. The 3DS sold more units the week before the price drop than the Wii U has been averaging this year)

The Wii U sold 29k the week before the announcement.... Now, for the people who keep comparing the Wii U's sales to the 3DS... 3DS dropped 27% then 35%... The Wii U will have another week hampered by the announcement. After the 3DS's price drop in increased 800%. If the Wii U follows any similar pattern it will sell 21k next week, 14k the next week... then how much after that? Even if it is the 50% drop like the 3DS's just spread through the 3 weeks instead of two then look at the increase. 800%... that means Wii U would scrap by 120k week of price drop following a similar pattern. Now, thats a respectable number... But the 3DS didn't settle at that. It fell back down. If Wii U follows a similar pattern it would be back at 70k in a couple weeks after the price drop. That is still pretty bad.

Now, here is the bottom line. Wii U and 3DS are in no way comparable situations. Stop comparing the two. Secondly, realize the implications of comparing the two. If you want the Wii U to pull a Nintendo 3DS then realize that a 3DS to the Wii U is still miserable sales (An 8 year old console would still be beating it weekly).

That is all.

87k per week?

How did u come up with these numbers? Do u mean total not average?

It had a decent first two months. Look it the average without taking those into consideration. 36k a week. Maybe I should add in 3DS's sales without Feb or Mar to make it sorta comparable to Wii U's 2013 average sales

Launch up to 4 weeks before price drop totals divided by amount of weeks it was out.

Does that make you feel better ?

are you wanking?

The 3DS and the Wii U are indeed very different situations, been saying this all along. Don't know about your numbers, one can't expect home consoles and handhelds to follow the same exact patterns but your overall point still stands.
Personally, I think the Wii U won't drop that drastically in the weeks before the price cut, but I also think that the increase on the actual price cut week won't be as dramatic, certainly no where near 800%.
And, yes, I fully expect 2014 sales to be poor overall, even if and when the Wii U gets an inevitable boost over the holidays.
This happens every year with at least one console, it sells poorly through the year and then has a decent holiday.
People go; "told you! It's saved!" and then sales plummet again after new years and people are baffled, time after time.

If the price cut occurs alongside a big game release, the Wii U should easily nudge and even pass the 100k mark, but that's not really a feat to be lauded at this point, those numbers should be the average through Q1 and Q3 at the very least. As time goes by and people insist that the Vita is dead and that the Wii U will be fine and pull a 3DS, I can't help but cling all the harder to my initial prediction and outlook for the Wii U, not for the hell of it but simply because it is, by all appearances, most likely to happen.

I guess 2014 will answer a lot of questions and the launch of a new Playstation and Xbox will make things a lot more interesting for sure. Not that I'm expecting either of those to shake the foundations of the earth, but at this point they really don't have to in order to catch and beat Nintendo in the race.

Excellent. That's very insightful.

Love to see it extended to sales after major titles dropped. I suspect WiiU sales, if it follow a similar pattern will still be 'soft' at best. However WiiU will have the added benefit of the holidays to boost sales. It'll be January sales in 2014 that will really be telling.

U should take away the launch sales to get a better estimate of baseline sales.

Like I said in the other thread pre price cut and pre holiday 2011 titles baseline for 3DS was about 70-80k and for the past 2 years has been doing 150-180k consistently. If Wii U has a similar Increase it can go from 35k to 75-100k with the price cut and holiday titles. Thats about 8m a year when factoring in boosts from software, holidays and future price cuts. So with a 5 year cycle Wii U can hit about 40 million which is what im predicting it will do.