How can Nintendo be irrelevant in their own industry?
This videogame industry is Nintendo's & has been since the mid-1980s.
They're the Home team & the others are the Visitors.

It's not the Wii U you need to worry about. It's the PlayStation 4 & XBox One.
Don't get caught up in launch fever. Dreamcast had a record breaking launch too.
Wii U sold 3 million before the end of 2012 which is a very good launch window.
And then they stalled out. Launches mean nothing.

Sony's stock has been downgraded to junk status.
They begged the Japanese government for a bailout & were refused.
They sold 2 major headquarters earlier this year for 1 billion a piece to raise capital (selling assets like those to make money is a BAD MOVE).
Andrew House, the President of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. himself, said that SCE isn't allowed to fail anymore with the PS4.
The PS3 & PSP fiascoes cost Sony $5 billion in losses. Money is EXTREMELY tight right now.
If the PS4 is not a breakout success, Sony is most likely finished in the videogame business.

If Nintendo sews up both the handheld & home console side of the Japanese market, they will own Japan entirely leaving no room for the other competitor Sony (Microsoft is a non-factor over there).
Since Japan is the capital of the videogaming world (and has been since Nintendo put it there in the mid-1980s), what happens in the Japanese market affects the game markets in the rest of the world.
The Japanese 3rd party will be the first to end their decades-long standoff against Nintendo & get all that support. Keep your eye on a struggling Capcom.
Nintendo owns Japan which sets the stage for America which then sets the stage for Europe & the rest of the world.

Bad thing is Sony's not even showing up in Japan until February 22, 2014. GIANT mistake.
The PS4 will be fighting the PS3 for attention due to the lack of backwards compatibility.
Also the graphical difference will be so minor that many people will stick to the cheaper PS3. Sony can't afford to be fighting off their old console like that.
Sony is not in a position of strength. They are absolutely dependent on the PS4 being a breakout success like the PS1 & PS2.
Anything less is well...hmm.

Microsoft only has 2 regions to sell in: America & Europe/Australia...in THAT order.
They have nothing in Japan & never will. XBox One won't change that reality & that's why they're not even concerned with a Japanese release right now.
If Microsoft loses grip of America, they're gonna bleed even MORE money than they already are.
Granted they have more money to burn than Sony does but everything has its limits.
They already lost $3 billion on XBox 360 in addition to the $2 to $3 billion they lost on the original XBox.
Steve Ballmer's stepping down & if that Stephen Elop guy (the Nokia assassin) takes his place, there's word that Elop would sell off the XBox division & cancel Bing among other measures.

It's more expensive than any other console out there including the similar PS4 & the XBox 360.
They may still suffer from the backlash of E3 2013 with the DRM policies. Customers may not trust them.
Like the PS4 will be doing to the PS3, the XBox One will be fighting for attention against the XBox 360 due to the same lack of backwards compatibility & higher price.
And Microsoft can't afford to be fighting off their old console like that.
Microsoft is not in a position of strength either even though their situation is not quite as crucial as Sony's is.

Sony: Fragile funds. Microsoft: Fragile markets.
Nintendo has the funds to sway the markets in their favor.
They will win the 8th generation with the Wii U.
A few years from now you will look back on this thread & laugh at the title.
Nintendo irrelevant? Ha! Not in THIS business.

More details here.
UNITY - Nintendo & Wii U Finish The REVOLUTION
John Lucas

LOL, I don't even think Nintendo feels they can win this generation. Going from selling sub-GameCube levels to beating the PS4/XB1 would be quite the feat.

Truth is casuals got a taste of dat $1 smartphone gaming, and that poisoned Nintendo's well. They sorta compounded it by not coming up with the "next big thing" after Wii Fit quick enough (Wii Music wasn't it, Vitalty Sensor .... turned into vaporware).

For a Nintendo console to have success with the formula they are using right now (low power hardware + controller novelty as the main selling point) they MUST have the casuals show up, not just Mario/Zelda fanatics and they've just been left hanging in the wind. 

You are very much deluded, if you think the delay of japanese launch until february is a 'big mistake' you clearly have poor understanding of japanese culture, when it launches here it will do extremely well, when console preorders were opened they were filled entirely, in less time than anywhere else it was launching.

But dont take my word for it, you will see if for yourself in february.

Nintendos home console for this generation is destined for last place, its clear from nintendos actions that they plan to stick with handhelds and move in to the casual mobile market, so the focus on whats left of the wiiu is going to shift to a point where its all but abandoned, just like many a nintendo home console before it.

But again, dont take my word for it, you will see it yourself over the next few months.

Nintendo will always be relevant in videogames, but the wii was basically the last stand in the livingroom, i'll be genuinelu surprised if they make another home console.

Potentially. Wii U hasn't caught on at all and Nintendo took too long to cut the price and push software forward. I'd still see how they do next year before making a cast iron judgement, but if they can't generate much momentum now then they will struggle. The major problem with Wii U sales having been so poor is that it takes far higher boosts than usual to lift the system to "normal" seasonal levels, and Nintendo just haven't had the ammunition to do that. If they can get Kart and Smash out quickly enough, they may yet do moderately well, but I'm far from certain that can happen.

You seem to have a lot of expectations. The question is, are they justified?

Yes, the PS4 had a good launch. The XB1 will probably also have one. But the WiiU also had a good launch, for those who can remember. The real test comes after Christmas - then we'll see if those expectations are going to become reality.

I wouldn't take much stock in pre-orders. That's launch stuff.

3DS was the most pre-ordered console in Amazon UK history. 3DS pre-orders DOUBLED amount of pre-orders Wii had.
Amazon Preorders Make the 3DS King of the Jungle
3DS Preorder Number Doubled the Wii's Preorders

What happened afterwards? It dragged. I don't take launch period stuff that seriously.
It's what you do in the long term that makes a console successful not just the short term introductory period.

Study videogame history in depth to understand my point of view.
Sony & Microsoft will leave this game business before Nintendo will.
You can take that to the bank.
John Lucas

P.S.: No such thing as 'casuals'. That's a bad framework that'll lead you to misreading the business.

I have four friends and two female cousins that have never bought a game console, and I never thought any of them ever would. They all bought a Wii. They are casual gamers (sorry if you can't handle that labelling). Just FYI, none of them have any interest in Wii U even when I explained to them what it was. 

Just because Nintendo pioneered the modern console gaming business doesn't mean they're automatically entitled to it just "because they're Nintendo". There's no free lunch in this business if you want market share you damn well have to earn it by putting in WORK, right now Nintendo is like that student who thinks just by showing up to class and whining to the teacher that they should be given a good grade. They're not putting in the WORK. Their marketing is sh*t so far this gen. Their software output thus far sucks. They are not taking any bold risks with the software. The hardware doesn't have a killer hook to it (six years of R&D and the best thing they could come up with was a giant sized DS bottom half?).

Fact is they've gotten their rear ends spanked in 2 of the last 3 console generations by Sony, and this one is looking a lot like 3 out of 4, because Sony looks like they learned their lessons from last gen and actually applied them this time. 

Then I will put it bluntly.

As a native Japanese, still living in Japan, the demand for the PlayStation 4 and it's games, both launch, and first year, are considerably higher than the demand for the WiiU, which is currently selling so poorly that most used games stores in the metropolitan Tokyo area now refuse to buy them (nobody is buying the ones they put up for sale).

History has it's benefits, primarilly when undertaking things that were attempted in the past, in that sense you benefit from hindsight, but history does not predict the future.

But, like I said, don't argue with me about it, simply wait and see for yourself.

These threads are hilarious and sad at the same time. Where was all this "doom and gloom" talk when the PS3 was going through a rough patch in its first couple of years? Just give the console some time and it will rebound. The odds are actually higher of that happening as the Wii U will host more exclusives and be far cheaper than its competitors for the duration of the 8th gen. /thread

The PS3 would have withered and died even with Mario Kart and Smash Brothers if it didn't have the full backing of the third party community. 

That's the main thing that saved Sony's rear end and bought them enough time to be able to make the system reasonably affordable to turn the generation around.