Sure right after launch they would think they were going OK, but by September they already had data showing 9 million was unrealistic.  They had the opportunity to revise and give more realistic estimates after September but they still kept forecasts high.

Well, tbh they did delay pretty much every single Wii U game they had for months and months and months. Perhaps when they gave those initial forecasts, they still expected to ship everything on time. That would've made a big difference.

What have they delayed into next FY?

DK and Wii Fit U are before March.

Sony revised their forecast for the Vita 3 times and then still only sold half of their last revision.  This isn't only Nintendo doing this.

Not next fiscal year, I said nothing about that - just delayed for months and months, period. As seen last year, having a drought from the start of the year until late summer pretty much kills of any and all momentum. Doesn't need to be delayed into the next fical year at all; 8 months or so should do pretty nicely if you intend to have your sales come to a full stop. Nobody's buying a system with no content; if PS4 wouldn't get any games from now until august/september, it wouldn't sell, either.

It's very rarely that bad for Sony though, they don't have a history of this. I also think Sony will learn from their mistake and will give Vita a realistic forecast in their next FY forecast.

Fair enough, so you think they're sales forever lost?

PS3 sold relatively well (like 9m first full year) with virtually no games, far less than WiiU has got for sure.

If Mario 3D World work didn't shift massive amounts of consoles during the holiday, then DK will not save them. Lets him Mario Kart gets bundled heavily. SSMB wont do the trick, those are for existing gamers.

Big difference.  The 3DS was never an unappealing piece of hardware, it's main problem, more then lack of games was it's $250 price.  Yes games came along with the price cut, so you can say the games had more impact than the price cut if that's how you want to view it, but the main problem was that the price was too high for a dedicated handheld, but the hardware itself was never undesirable like the Wii U is to many, regaurdless of price.  I could have bought the Skylander/Nintendoland bundle for $199cdn, even at that price It still didn't appeal to me.  Of course that's just me, but I'm sure others feel the same way.  I should note that I have been a die hard Nintendo fan since the 80's & this is the first Nintendo console I just have zero interest in.

Well that's very hard to say, obviously. I'm pretty sure some of those sales will be lost forever, same how I'm pretty sure some people who intended to get a Wii U but held off will buy one once more games they want release. Time will tell, I guess, but imo it's pretty clear that last year's crazy software drought has done immense damage to Wii U and its image.

As for the PS3 comparison, yeah it sold pretty well, but I guess that had more to do with the fact that it was coming right after the immensely successful PS2 (Wii U came after Wii had been pretty dead for a long time), as well as because it was a cheap bluray player, perhaps. Also, Wii U's gotten abandoned by virtually every developer/publisher, save for a few big titles here and there; I won't think PS3 ever was.