Nintendo have spent insane numbers buying premium shelf space at numerous key retail partners like Walmart, Target and Toys'r'Us, in addition to spending ludicrous numbers on advertising these past couple of weeks leading into the holidays.

I'd be very concerned if Nintendo platforms fail to sell this holiday. But they wont. Even if there is a sales explosion, VGChartz prolly will not be able to track it (This happened fall 2009 when VGChartz undertracked Nintendo sales by several million).

Nintendo buying up shelf space each holiday at key retailers is consistently underestimated.

Considering that Mario 3D World has been in the top 8 of the Amazon best sellers for a week now, I am pretty sure the sales have been good. Not to mention that Amazon, Gamestop, and Target are all sold out of Wii U bundles online right now. You can argue PS4 v. XBone v. WiiU all day but it's not even an argument what the best game to come out in the last week is. (It's not Ryse or Knack.)

The only one I can remember recently was Ocarina of Time 3D.  I went to about 6 stores on launch day and no one had it.    It's extremely rare that a game is sold out and if it is, that just means that the company underestimated how popular a game would be.  Ussually they make too many.

Come to think of it, neither have I. The biggest games ever launched including Halo, COD, GTA 5 etc were always still there to be picked up a couple days after launch. Loads of copies are usually on the shelf.

Actually, the only exception was wii fit.

If a 3D Mario can't sell WiiUs then I don't know what will.

What is an "ill-omen"?"Knock it out of the park"?

But i don't see a huge audience saying:"hey, now that mario 3D is out its time to get wiiU". I know its a diferent game from the NSMBU, but general perception doesn't go this way. Galaxy didn't sell more than nsmb. Some of the worst commercials produced for video games doesn't help too.

Still, i don't see the game that will change wiiu fortunes around here. Since we have decent third party support, this console need a great game every month, and a incredible game every 3 months to make the console the thing that 3DS is among handhelds.

Was necessary years to make the ps3 a machine on par with ps1 and ps2. Wiiu will need more time too, and will need to do all by itself.

It wouldn't be an ill-omen, it would be an unmitigated disaster. But it's not going to happen. It's going to sell fine and have strong legs and should shift a fair few consoles during the Christmas shopping period. If the Wii U doesn't have an installed userbase over 7m units between now and the end of the year I'll be very surprised.

This is true, but Nintendo did pull this a bit with Fire Emblem on 3DS (to help push eShop usage)

I think if by Mario Kart 8 release, the console sales don't improve to healthy levels, we can already consider it a gamecube 2, with much less 3rd party support at that.

In the other hand, such situation would cause it to drop to 150€ quickly, making it a tempting sidekick console.