I guess you dont follow economics. During the last gen we had the great boom for 2 reasons. Economies were doing well here in the U.S. and my genreration who grew up from the start of home consoles (NES) were in their mid to late 20's. That means families not yet started and money to spend. Where would that money go? Hmmmmm... To sit there and try to rebuttal an arguement with a comparison of 7-8 years ago is prettty much a swing a miss. I only compared the PS3 in the time frame and what people were saying about that console at the same time. To call a console a flop in the 1st year of sales in a bad economic haze is wrong. We are supposed to learn from history not disregard it. 

More sad about the Vita because I actually own it and its future support is far more dependent on sales.

It deserved it more than the WiiU though.

Wii U. It has big games and it still can't sell the console.

Vita. Atleast I can understand why it's selling like this, no big games from the usual suspects.

The VITA. The potential if Square Enix would make a real FF (like Type-O & Crisis Core) would be unreal. Such a great piece of hardware.

The WiiU is a joke (I own one)

I seem to have a better grasp on the market than you do, you seem not to realize what the Wii U's main problem is. And how can you pull the economics card when the the 7th gen started right before the greatest global economic collapse since the depression? And seeing the industry growing into a 65 billion $ global market today, 2011 and 2012 marked the real kick-off in growth and the industry has grown by about 70% from 2007 till 2012, 2012 saw the sales of 930 million tablets and smartphones and record breaking revenue across the board. The Wii U launched in this year, it launched in a far bigger industry than the PS3 and 360 and Wii did, yet has failed to make any sort of impact.

These tablets and phones I mentioned are the very reason the Wii U is crashing; Nintendo attempted forced market convergence with their Gamepad to draw in these customers, but ended up with a bipolar concept that alienated both the casual and core gaming crowd; going directly against their strategy. The gaming industry is vastly bigger now than when the PS3 launched, and let's not forget that it sold considerably more with mostly poor software and at a ridiculous price point, nor did it have a whole year alone as the only generation contender on the market.

There is no two ways about; the Wii U has failed to tap into any market constants and the sales clearly show this, and their issues cannot simply be resolved by cutting prices and releasing software; it runs deeper and is very closely tied to the one thing that was supposed to be the strength of the Wii U: the Gamepad. I don't think I'm the one who needs to "follow economics" here, you claim that the the US economy was healthy and growing (?!) during the previous generation? It collapsed completely on almost all fronts.

I have learned from history; you obviously have not. Like I said; this "economic haze" (is the economy good or bad? You suggest both, the truth is that it is really and has been for some years, certainly long before the Wii U launched) is in actuality a gaming industry set to double its revenue over the span of a decade (2005-2015) and has not hindered unprecedented sales of smart devices and two record console launches last year. It's all about perceived value, the Wii U simply has really poor perceived value and anyone with an ounce of insight in economics and markets and consumer electronics would know as much.

The Vita, because it's actually good hardware. It needs more games and cheaper memory cards but the system itself is good.

But that's Nintendo's own fault, which does not make it as sad when its self-inflicted.  Ninty acts/operates smaller than they are, and allows itself to be bullied by these "outsiders".  Instead of trying to fix their image with the so called core audience, they completely give it up, going for weaker hardware (completely unacceptable to the core) and just cater to family/kids.  The problem is, that market is already covered by their handheld line, so Ninty is flooding its own market by offering a home console, that becomes a luxury at best (since its not up to current industry standard). 

Even as a Wii U fan, I'm glad its failing hard.  A  lesson must be learned, that power should never be sacrificed for the hook (in this case, gamepad), as it renders the hook useless if its lacking in a critical aspect (power).

I'm more sad about vita, the hardware is awesome as are the features. And it has enough games for me.