The difference between the DS / Wii and the Wii U is that the former ones had an actual strategy behind them. The DS was designed to be a blue ocean product and the Wii was designed to be a disruptive product. The Wii U on the other hand is just a console with a touch screen controller - there is absolutely no deeper strategy to it, just Nintendo "solving" a problem nobody wanted to be solved (gaming when someone else wants to watch TV).
And while the DS started off slowly it gained momentum pretty fast: 12 months after its release it was selling record numbers in Japan (600k units in a single week!) and it always had decent first and third party support. The Wii U doesn't have either of those because Nintendo had problems with HD development and hardware sales are too low for third parties to turn a profit.

No games = no sales. It doesn't exactly help they designed a huge, awkward controller nobody asked for.

People are often wrong at predicting the future. That's nothing new and it certainly does not begin and end with Nintendo. Many people had predicted Sony to finish a solid third this generation, after all.

That's why it kind of annoys me when people look back and act smug. There is no one who is right all the time.

Still, it really is interesting how western publishers and developers never got behind handhelds.

Holy cats, that is an amazing website.  It's just so militant, which is strange to say about something related to gaming.  So much vemon directed toward anything non-Nintendo; it's an absolute blast!

"Hope you are happy third parties, game journalists, and gamers; Nintendo is struggling console-wise, and its your fault. Hope you enjoy your next-generation consoles that could supposedly lock out second-hand games!"   http://pietriots.com/2013/02/16/wiiu-is-failing-but-it-isnt-nintendos-fault/

"MGS4 is Kojima at his absolute worst, a hateful-scornful game director who is lapped in making games after games in a series that just needs to die or have a non-canonical game like Ghost Babel or the Ac!d games. Yet if you are still curious, rent it and do nothing else."  http://pietriots.com/2013/01/07/mgs4/#more-6803

"Time for a new approach guys because I’m not buying this crap. I’m curious about how the Indycar and Lotus F1 cars handle, simply because Codemasters is currently the only company doing open-wheel racing, and they handle like dogshit. A few interesting new cars is too little to justify buying two games worth of content, let alone a brand new console, and who knows how many hidden costs yet to be unearthed?"  http://pietriots.com/2013/11/08/forza-5-doing-it-wrong/

"I’m letting my service expire because I would much rather be playing Wii U and I have a few PS1 RPGs I’d like to enjoy at a leisurely pace instead of destroying the flavour of the week."  http://pietriots.com/2013/11/09/playstation-plus-too-much-of-a-good-thing/

"I’ve been trying to enjoy inFAMOUS 2 for a couple of hours but I really can’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t be here. The game world is so uninteresting that I’m prepared to miss out on a good gameplay experience right now even though I’m just getting started. So many aspects of the game rub me the wrong way and I have to write some short impressions in an attempt to savour some sanity from this life-threatening situation of “playing a bad videogame“."  http://pietriots.com/2013/05/10/infamous-2-doing-it-wrong/

Good article and very interesting to read!
Unfortunately though it makes the WiiU's future look even more bleak since the GC didn't sell well either. Oh well, Nintendo's next console could be huge!

Great article. Only thing that didn't do it for me was the part about every system nowadays has touch or a second screen. Touch controls can kinda work with what he's saying, but the DS wasn't even remotely close to what today's second screen concept is.

What?  I don't get what you're trying to say.

This is why I love Nintendo. Every generation people say they're doomed, but they never are. Then when they actually feel like there's a problem, they pull some really weird shit and it's awesome, and then they're fine again. People will always say they're doomed though, because they think differently.

*nods in respect*

Nobody would say they are 100% certain about the future of a console. It goes without saying, any prediction is an educated (or uneducated ) guess.