Yes, several people here do.

It's the damage that Wii has caused. I have been saying this long time before the Wii U was announced. Wii was earning sick money, but it came at a price. Nintendo alienated gamers from their platform by catering only to the casuals. Now casuals are gone and gamers see the Wii U as more of the same and decide that PS4/XO is a much better choice. We got burned once and this is the same old story.

PS4/XO are selling because everyone knows we're gonna get all 3rd party games on top of the 1st party games. On Wii U soon we won't be getting any 3rd party games, so there will only be the 1st party games left + shovelware. Nintendo vs. the rest of the world? I'm not gonna bet 300 Euro on Nintendo, sorry.

So as Nintendo alienated the gamers, who should buy this console? Kids? Ok, but how many kids can afford a 300 Euro console in this economy? Parents will surely just pick a PS360 or the OG Wii and call it a day.

To sum up - Nintendo is suffering from its own sins. They've neglected the gamers in favour of the fickle casuals. They need a massive push back into the core territory to become relevant again. Mature Zelda, Metroid Prime, X, Bayo 2, another FPS franchise (with good online), Star Fox, another RPG franchise (Western style preferably), this is the way they have to go. And they have to keep on buying known IPs like they did with Bayo - doesn't matter it's gonna bomb, they need to power through to the core territory by building a library for core gamers and we all know it will be costly. They can't allow all their games look like kids' games. 2D Mario, 3D Mario, Pikmin, W101, LEGO City, Sonic, Donkey Kong, Mario Kart, Zelda WW HD, SSB, Yarn Yoshi. Every single important game that is meant to drag people into buying this console has exactly the same style and non looks like a serious, mature game. They all look to be aimed at kids/casuals. Nintendo has to stop it and move on. They need exclusive games like Resident Evil, Eternal Darkness, etc.

Wii wasn't a mistake, it was a brilliant move that sold them over 100 million consoles with a per unit profit from day one.

Wii U's troubles do not stem from the Wii, they stem from the poor design and marketing choices made with Wii U itself.

toastboy, you can read my original reply in this quote tree lol:

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=5853309

I think 3rd place is a safe bet

I am pretty sure most people talking about the WiiU are not Nintendo gamers. (that always was the case with Nintendo consoles)


So to answer the thread title question: I dont think so.

it was a brilliant move but also a wasted opportunity,  had nintendo made a console powerful enough to get ports, maybe we would be looking at a nintendo console with great third party support, where gamers at actually buy the console to play third party games, and the wiiu would be in a much better poisiton, nintedo pulled off a miracle winning last gen with out great party support, but if you look at history the console with great third party support always win except for the wii.

Powerful hardware wasn't really a viable option at the time, they'd tried that with the N64 and GCN but were still outsold, and they couldn't know if motion controls were  going to take off. Attaching an expensive chipset to the Wii could have been disastrous to them, it was too big a risk.

Man, you just cannot get over the excitement of Nintendo possibly coming in third this gen, can you?

That's because at this point you can pretty much say there is no such thing as a Nintendo gamer anymore. Nintendo has killed their fanbase, they are extinct almost like the dinosaurs with only a handful of them left, kept in zoo's (hence - Wii U sales).