The problem is that did next to nothing for hardware sales. Should have had Retro working on Metroid instead, at least that would have been different enough to convince a few more people to buy a WiiU.

It will definitely have legs.  If there's anything we've learned about Nintendo games, they have a much more gradual drop off in sales, and sometimes even see spikes during holiday seasons even when the game is well over a year or two old!  That's something only Nintendo games seem to do!

Having posted my own video review of it, I am pretty sure that people will buy it and find the charm in it, so this game should break the 1 mil+ mark pretty easily!

I wouldn't worry so much about the hardware, Nintendo games generally don't move hardware in singular spikes.  Though the hardware usually sees a small bump during major game releases, the reality is that Nintendo sells systems off its first party library, rather than big hitter single titles.  The hardware, therefore, will continue to see gradual increases week-on-week or month-on-month as Nintendo's major releases continue to pile up.

If this did so well with such a small install base then imagine the games people actually care about. :O

The thing is that peoples who want DK already got the Wii U so that's why it didn't help at all.

Indeed.  The fact is that in order to play DKCTF, people are having to pay $350 (unless they own the console already, of course).  This is unprecedented with Nintendo.  If DK, the upcoming MK8, or Smash were bundled with WiiU for $249 it would result in a night and day difference in sales.

They need a price cut, pronto, and at this point I don't care what they have to do to achieve it.  Sell a SKU without the Gamepad, have Iwata take another pay cut... hell, man-up through another fiscal loss if you have to Nintendo.  This is going nowhere.  These games will not even reach the amount of consumers the Gamecube's did unless something is done immediately.

Regardless of what the competition is doing, when the price for new consumers to play a new hit Nintendo game is still $350 over a year later, then...

Nope, this is a similar first week % split between Japan and US as the Wii game was. So really it should have been somewhat expected. Also the numbers are still not great at all, even with the low install base

Donkey Kong Country Returns:6.11M

Metroid Prime1-2-3:5.92M combined

According to VGchartz, it is 240k. http://www.vgchartz.com/game/73169/donkey-kong-country-tropical-freeze/

As previously stated, it's a game more or less covered. Folks likely bought a Wii U for NSMBU or 3D World, or in significantly smaller numbers for Lost World or Legends. The solid first week numbers here now show that there is a, well, solid base for this kind of game, but it's not expansionary.

The wrong game to sell hardware, but a good game to just plain sell. Should net Nintendo a good chunk of change in the end, especially as i have a suspicion that it's a warmed-over Wii project.