The Wii U is much weaker than its competitors and is even weaker that the last generation of consoles in many ways.

Lack of DVD and BLU RAY playback in unacceptable.

People badmouth the online but it actually gets the job done-and its free-unlike its competitors.

However, the eshop is crap. Where are all the N64 and Gamecube games? Their prices are also way overpriced. 

Limited harddrive space. Consumers shouldn't be required to go out and buy a 2nd harddrive. They should have launched a skew that had at least 500 GB of space.

Crappy gamepad gimmick that actually hinders the gameplay experience. Also the 3 hr battery life is abysmal. They should have launched the Wii U with the pro controller as the default controller, (with a headset port of course), and then reinvest the money into adding a BLU RAY player, more harddrive space, and more power under the hood. That way, they would have gotten more 3rd party support and they could compete head-on against Microsoft and Sony. The Xbone and PS4 are flying off shelves despite costing way more than the Wii U. Evidenntly, consumers are willing to spend more for quality. I love Nintendo and want them to suceed, but they really shot themselves in the foot with the Wii U launch. Its kinda like what happened with the PS3. After annihalating the Xbox and Gamecube with the PS2 Sony thought that consumers would pay an arm and a leg for any Sony product regardless of price. Of course, they were wrong, and the PS3 bled red for half a decade. However, they have bounced back very nicely in the last 3 years, and the PS3 will likely surpass the Wii in 12-15 months at the rate its selling right now. Talk about an epic comeback. My final 7th generation sales predictions are as follows:

Playstation 3: 110 million

Nintendo Wii: 102 million

Xbox 360: 97 million

Yes it does.

Its massively down on what Nintendo expected and they have dropped the 3D aspect of it completely in the latest version.

They could be down on the forcast by, if the OP is correct, around 12 Million units. That is called being out of touch with the consumer, the market and reality.

Theyre out of touch with the consumer, because they clearly thought the consumer would jump onto the platforms in numbers far beyond what they actually did. They didnt have the software. They thought wrong. They were way off.  Theyre out of touch with the consumer.

The market, because they expected the platforms to sell far beyond what they did. They overestimated the market penetration of these devices. They thought wrong. They were way off. Theyre out of touch with the market. 

Reality, because even after it was painfully obvious to everyone after poor Q1/Q2 numbers that they wouldnt be anywhere near the expectations, they still kept the numbers high.

Like I said before Nintendo was being too optimistic or delusional with their forecast. What happened here is a mismanagement, nothing more, nothing less.  

3DS sold really well during the holidays, best hardware I think, that means people wanted it, people wanted to play its games. Nintendo over predicted? sure, but that doesn't make people not wanting the handheld or Nintendo being out of touch with them.

Is like if I have a restaurant and I have an amazing holiday but because I'm a selfish prick I had high hopes to sell way more than I could. that's what happened here basically.

So again, Nintendo is out of touch with reality, but not the consumer nor the market. Wii U is a completely diffrent story though.

They expected a Mario game to sell 9 + million consoles?

They really are out of touch!

Gonna have to agree to disagree.

I think when you overblow your projections by that much then you have serious problems.

The 3DS sold really well, but any platform that gets a new redesign with Zelda and Pokemon is going to sell really well. There is no denying that and it was always going to be the top selling platform during the Holidays. What the problem is, is that they totally overestimated the demand. Theyre out of touch.

And that's thanks to Japan. XB1 and PS4 have both done around 2m~ in the US this holiday, 3DS has done 1.8m. Even 360 will be around 1.5m~

they thought they were the wii and nintendo ds. they could put pretty much the same 2 things out and change there name and people would buying 100m wii's again and 80m ds's.

IMHO i dont think their was much they could have done. Even if they did what you suggested their was absolutely no gaurantee that the casual audience would have flocked to a Super Wii? why would they to play better looking versions of games they already have and probably lost interest in anyway? It would have done better but the system would still not be on fire. the core is more likely to stick with MS and Sony becasue they know they are going to get the games, its not really a question, you never know with Ninty.

Indeed, they are worth 150B$ in assets while Nintendo is worth around 17-18B$ in assets. However, sony has a debt of    

135B$.

I will use your logic, I could have 500M$ and you could have 10$, however, if I have a debt of 600M$ and you have 0 debt, you're still worth a lot more then me.

Standard strange Japanese mentality.

They would rather take a hit to their shares (which really can't afford to keep going lower) than someone to tell the CEO that he screwed up really badly and not only missed targets, but made a product that few people want.

This is the ONLY time where a large share holder board would be good as they would have fired the heads of the company years ago and started moving things about again.