not really, the motion controls was a brilliant iudea but nintendo in there mind thought it would have a small chance of success, thats why they made a very cheap console, basically a gamecube with more ram, they used ancient tech just in case it failed they would not have to take major losses, but it hurt them big time cause they never established an online gaming community and never got the huge third party franshises, thats are selling consoles now, if they made a console that could run 360/ps3 games and had good online play, they could have been in a great position in the core market.

I'll take a shot.  PS2 had amazing first party and third party support for many years (3800 total games whoa) and it was supported by Sony and other companies for a longer time than the Wii was.  Nintendo dropped support after 2010 (except for Skyward Sword and a few others) I guess to focus on the Wii U (which makes no sense since it had so few Nintendo games at launch) or maybe just to sit on their laurels.  Third parties dropped support as well, and they didn't support it much to begin with (aside from lots of shovelware).   Plus, PS2 steamrolled its competition at the time, whereas the Wii faced two consoles who ended up with amazing numbers themselves, both at 80 million.  The bottom line is that the PS2 may never be topped, so if the Wii couldn't top it and the PS4 can't top it, I don't think that really makes them look bad, even if they can track ahead of it for a year or so.  The PS2 was the ultimate marathon console, and it seems attention spans get shorter and shorter these days, with smartphones and tablets and everything else taking away attention from consoles. 

oh ive read them, not the Wii U ones, i will do that cause i imagine he's not happy

I didn't know you can call something a fad while it's having its strongest year and kept plenty of steam for the following two years.

The Wii wasn't and isn't a fad. Nintendo made a bet regarding HDTV adoption and so did Sony. They both sort of half won their bets but each took a bit of a hit for them because of the transition to HDTV. Nintendo bet that HD wasn't a big deal yet and in 2006 it wasn't. Being a more fun and less expensive option, Nintendo basically sold millions. However as technology marched on and as the whole generation moved down the price curve, the PS3 began to be reconsidered. Could it really be a second console at the initial price? No, not at all at $500 for the cheapest model. However at $299 with bundles, it really started to move.

This coincided with the price drops on HDTV's. You can go into almost any store now and buy a 39 inch HDTV for under $300. This was completely unheard of back in 2006. As the cost curve bent, the console best suited for it made the most gains, especially when coming down from the highest prices to reasonable prices.

So it wasn't that Nintendo was a fad. There were other factors. Sony started to execute much better and HDTV's became cheap as heck. In fact part of why Sony is in financial trouble is their television division can't make any money. No one making televisions can make any money. Everything that uses an LCD is becoming so cheap that no one can maintain any price control.

If there is any console that should be considered a fad, it is the Xbox 360. It has bled money continually, it was overtaken by PS3 at the end of the generation and it has been through every configuration possible all just to mostly sell for a small period of time largely in North America. It didn't start with an HDMI port but had one added later. It started with an HD-DVD add-on and dumped that. It started with and has DVD drive in what was supposed to be a next gen HD console.

Xbox benefited from a handful of popular shooters, all of which are largely tired experiences by now. It spawned and now demands the Kinect motion controller on the next generation. It never sold well in Japan. It completely was destroyed in Europe and the rest of the world. It only is in a narrow third place because so many bro's want to play Call of Duty in North America.

After Christmas, Xbox One is just going to get killed because it is clear Microsoft can't sell it well anywhere else besides North America. Wii U is making decent and improving numbers all over the world. Xbox One has already been held even in North America, is losing it's butt in Europe and it is really clear it won't do anything in Japan while PS4 will get a major boost there.

The fad is Microsoft and Xbox. They were the third entry into the console business and have managed to sort of hang around by buying companies and turning their games into exclusives, bleeding profits on their consoles and finally just bleeding even more money by reconfiguring them in every way after placing nothing but losing bets. (No HDMI, HD-DVD, etc.)

They've made a another round of losing bets and this time at the highest price point because they can't continue to let the Xbox division bleed billions. There won't be the same level of sales from them this time at all. They are already the inferior FPS experience. Sony has equaled and surpassed the experience of Xbox live along with offering games at a better value. Both Sony and Nintendo offer much better values at high and low price points. Microsoft is just going to get crushed and proven to be a largely financed and one time fad.

the wiiu is not in the same position its not even close to being a ps3, its a dead console in the us and in europe, and the main reason ps3 sales declined was the price and the 360, the 360 had better graphics on mulitplatdorm games, a much better price, better online and a controller that was far better then the ds3.

thats fair, BUT in the same time frame as Wii the PS2 did have higher numbers. For all the same reasons you listed and then some.

Fads usually aren't market leaders for nearly half a decade, so no.

If the Wii is a fad, then every video game console in existence is also a fad. Can we please stop trying to downplay Wii's success as something less than good planning, marketing, and software content? If you don't like the console that's fine, but damn.. never seen people so eager to rip something apart for asinine reasons.

No. It had a typical console sales curve.

PS360 on the other hand had a very long and adjusted curve which throws off Wii when comparing them all.

You're only argument could be that motion, which Wii created, was a fad in the overall history of gaming. But even that is not a solid argument as its still around now and much more useful/mature in certain game scenarios beyond the classic waggle far too many devs pushed on us.