Not an assumption, but a fact. Why did the PS2 sell well? Because, in addition to its massive software lineup, it released before the GameCube, offered a media format people were excited about, and had massive hype surrounding it. The PS3 almost entirely relied on its blu-ray capabilities at first, because its price and lack of software pushed away gamers towards the 360. 

This gen will almost exclusivley be dependent on software. Media format and hardware no-longer play as much of a role, and people will go where the games are. The PS4 and X1 will sell very well because of 1st and 3rd party games being available. The Wii U seems to be a console that will have 1st party priority and decent 3rd party support, so it should do well.

Yeah I saw one 20-something-ish guy pick up the $250 NSMBU bundle and a $39.99 copy of Mario 3D World. 

I'd be all over that too, but I already have the system and those games. 

Zombi U is $14.99 here too (brand new) ... I kinda thought about picking it up but slow paced FPS are really not my thing. 

But theoretically if you waited to get a Wii U, you could walk outta there with NSMBU + NSLU + Mario 3D World ($40) + Zombi U ($15) + Wii Party U w/extra Wiimote ($30) for under the launch price of the machine. 

Whoa..whoa..wait...are you posing a theory that if the Gamecube came out before the PS2 that it would've done better? Nintendo screwed the pooch with third parties yeaaaaars before that. They lost the third parties around the N64 era and were pissing them off around the SNES era, but they couldn't flee because they were dependent on Nintendo's marketshare.

The Wii U is going to have really bad third party support in the coming years compared to how they are already having it now. The third party support is mostly coming as they are reliant on the fact that Sony and Microsoft's current gen consoles are getting games. They aren't even getting most of the current gen ones. They will be reliant on first party and third party, which will most likely cap them at thirty million consoles. If theres few third party titles there will be less gamers depending on Nintendo for their third party games (which the exodus started two gens earlier) which cuts down their installed base by half or more. This gen will be relatively short so I think Nintendo will sell twenty-five million and at the highest about thirty.

The Wii U is serving essentially the same portion of the Nintendo market that Nintendo served during both of their losing generations with the N64 and the GC.

Actually I do think if GameCube launched a year earlier it probably would've done significantly better.

Launching a year late gave Sony an insurmountable lead and gave Microsoft time to get the XBox ready, which wouldn't have been as big of a problem if they didn't have a killer app to sell the system with -- unfortunately for Nintendo they happened to have one (Halo).

Launching a year earlier would've given Nintendo a pretty much untouchable position as the no.2 console by a good margin over MS and would've positioned the GameCube nicely in the "are you a third party that's frustrated with PS2 development?" alternative slot.

Fall 2000 launch with some late gen N64 projects moved over like Zelda: Majora's Mask, Perfect Dark, Sin & Punishment, and Conker's Bad Fur Day probably would've done well. 

That was another problem with the N64 to GCN transition, Nintendo wasted way too many "big gun" projects on the N64's dying years. 

Right now production costs are still quite high, but they should drop quite quickly, allowing Ninty to price it more attractively. With more games available, lower price and free online multiplayer, it should better its sales considerably, PS3 had a great comeback from far worse conditions and XB360, after utterly clumsily losing its head start and leadership, recovered with excellent legs, they became best 2nd and 3rd ranking ever and they swapped positions still both growing, beating FIVE home console generation winners, including NES and SNES, in the process.
BTW Why U is still 8th gen best seller.

Well I would put it like this. The whole gaming market is bigger today than it was two generations back, so even if Wii U would sell really bad in its whole lifetime it should still be able to sell more than GC or Xbox did.

I think it will do as well as the SNES (48 million at least). Gaming is alot bigger now. It should be pretty easy to beat gamecube as it sold 21 million. Wii U had a slow start but it still made it to 5 million in the first year, next year should be much better given the lineup. Price is an enormous advantage for Wii U too.

Pretty much this. The PS2 could've been the last out of the gate within that wave of consoles and it probably wouldn't have made a difference.

Bolded 1: It would've been a prisoner of the moment reaction at best. Developers still would've had to of dealt with optical disc, controller and memory card 59 (or at least the attach rates compared to the higher capacity memory cards) workarounds in the long run.

Bolded 2: Looking at the eyebrow-raising 1st party droughts the Gamecube suffered from, I think it's obvious that Nintendo were betting the farm on Rare picking up the slack either way until the departure of key personnel and Microsoft's buyout threw a spanner into the works. Nintendo may not have risked taking such unorthodox, late approaches with Mario Kart, Metroid Prime, Zelda etc. if Donkey Kong Racing, Perfect Dark Zero, a true DKC-series sequel came to fruition on the GC.

I think the Wii U will at least do N64 numbers and SNES numbers are possible.

The Game Cube had it's best-selling game shortly after launch (Melee). It also had many great exclusive games in it's first two years, but between 2004 and 2006 I only bought Metroid Prime 2, MGS Remake and Resident Evil 4 for it.

 The Wii U had one of the worst software droughts of all time, so first year sales don't say much about overall performance.

The first year was pretty much wasted, it almost feels like it launched with 3D World together with the other consoles.

Judge it by 2014 when the two probably best-selling Wii U games of this gen will release (MK8 and SSB). If it doesn't sell well with these games, there are no more excuses.