Keep in mind that 3 million of the X-Box One's sales were launch/Christmas season sales, so this isn't a fair comparison by any stretch of the imagination. The only major "exclusive" (read: system seller) launching this year for X-Box One that we know about so far is Titanfall, meaning the the X-Box One isn't likely to rise too far above the 50-60K a week it seems to be hovering at. At that pace, it would take fiften to twenty weeks to simply add another million sales, and there are only 43 or so weeks left in the year, and roughly 39 until the end of November. 8 million sales by November's time is pretty far fetched, barring Microsoft having some unannounced big name exclusive hitting the market later this year.

None of the countries it hasn't launched in will provide any significant sales boost, and besides, we still have no confirmed launch date for any of those countries.

Quite frankly, I have my doubts about the X-Box One seeing much of a boost with multi-plats being released not only on last gen consoles, but on Sony and PC (in the case of Watch Dogs) as well. A re-release of Halo 2 (which, I might add, isn't even confirmed yet, and might not even release this year), a couple of multiplats, and Titanfall aren't going to suddenly make up another 2 million sales.

There is the possibility for a price cut, certainly, although Microsoft has repeatedly stated they're not bringing the X-Box One below $500, but whatever, let's say that happens for the sake of argument. Your comparison isn't taking into account the issue of holiday sales, a much more fair comparison would be the PS3 with the price cut in a month where holiday sales aren't driving up console sales immensley. And in that case, while there is certainly an average of improvement, it is absolutely nowhere near a 3.4 million unit increase.

...and, well, obviously if you make the price cut during holiday sales, you take away any room to reach 8 million by the end of November, since the majority of the holiday sales come in December. 

I'm not forgetting about the gamepad at all. The screen on that is a low cost resistive screen of minor cost. Lets not forget the ps3 and 360 have the cost of a hard drive included for most models which is probably costing them $20-30. The wii u has a over-sized joypad with a screen. Nintendo didn't even put analogue triggers in the gamepad  and the battery is very low capacity. There is nothing in the gamepad of value. You can buy a basic chinese android tablets in the UK for £30. That is with a 7" capacitive screen and a full motherboard with processor, gpu etc. The gamepad is just a joypad with a screen. The processing is done in the main wii u console. What do you think is in the gamepad of value because it certainly isn't the screen or the main pcb? 

Those big franchises weren't nearly as big back in the GC era. MK and SB are both much more high profile and mainstream successes now than they were then. Both upcoming Wii U titles are also much more highly anticipated, as a result, than DD and Melee were.

You may be right, but Nintendo are selling the Wii U at a loss, the costs must be coming from somewhere and if the console itself is cheap in design like you say then it must be coming from the Gamepad.

Anyway my main point is that I don't think Nintendo can afford to drop the price as they can't lose more money than they already are. I think MS are in a better position to  play a price war, they recently made about £6billion (not sure if thats last quarter or FY so far)  and could afford to lose £8billion on the OG Xbox back in the day just to get a foot hold in the market, I think they'll do the same with XOne instead of losing the market to Sony so badly. They just have more financial muscle than not only Nintendo but Sony to.

I agree with you that the wii u's chance at success would come from being a low cost secondary console but I just don't think Nintendo are in a position to drop the price.

The Wii U is between a rock and a hard place, PS3/360 are much better options as a cheap console for kids and the PS4/XOne are for the hardcore - I hate that term but you get the point.

With the known 2014 releases, Wii U. Wii U has a large enough lead already with weekly sales that are currently not much lower than Xbox One and with Mario Kart 8 and Smash 4 coming this year, I'd be surprised if Xbox One got there first.

You're relying upon circular reasoning here.

The reason why MK and SB sold more during the Wii cycle is simply because the Wii sold multiple times more consoles than the GC.

The market for MK and SB will shrink over the Wii U cycle; these games will not sell enough consoles to maintain the same number of sales.

When Nintendo said they were making a small profit with the original wii later financial figures showed they were actually making a huge profit. Nintendo will never release full manufacturing costs of their consoles so we have no way of validating their claims. Yes I'm saying they are lieing.

However there is also the issue of R&D. If Nintendo spent 250 million on developing the wii u you might say it wants to recoup $10 in R&D costs per console for the first 25 million consoles or you might say you wanted $50 from each console so those costs were paid off with the first 5 million consoles sold. It really depends on how you factor R&D costs per console. 

The wii u isn't in that difficult a place. NIntendo consoles always offer something unique. The wii u isn't a competitive console in performance but still offers unique gaming experiences. I feel there will be a market for it at a lower price point. This time Nintendo has failed to produce a winner like wii but they made a profit out of the N64 and Gamecube despite their low sales and I see no reason that Nintendo can't do the same with wii u. Frankly NIntendo deserved this failure, the wii u should not have been released as it is and certainly not at the price point Nintendo tried to sell it at.

Wii U.......but i just landed a haymaker on my goldfish anyway.

None. both are doomed. PS4 Master race.
I actually think the WiiU got a chance there, I hope it can even reach it this year with MK8 boost during holiday along with Smash Bros.