Firstly a quick comparison.

Both Gamecube and Wii launched in Novembers around the same time, so comparing is easy, both 6 Q's in the shipments stand at

Gamecube - 9.55m
WiiU - 6.25m*

*Nintendo forecast 390k for the Q just gone, we'll find out in less than a week if they hit that.

So WiiU has a 3.3m deficeit to make up going forward. But how does Gamecube do over the same following 3 Q's (leading up to the end of the year)?

Gamecube - 13.94m

This means WiiU has to ship 7.69m consoles between April and Dec 31st (for reference last year they shipped 2.41m).

It's .. impossible to predict what MK will do to WiiU sales, we could talk ranges but peole will always disagree, 7.69m is a very large number for the next 3 Q's however consider WiiU is still below that by 1.5m after 6 Q's.

This takes us into 2015, the last year sales could stand a chance of peaking, 2016 onwards will be its twilight years (and possibly might even see a successor this holiday, 4 years of WiiU).

Gamecube by end of 2015 - CY 18.03m. An extra 4.09m consoles shipped in 2004. I believe if here is any chance WiiU can overtake Gamecube it's in this year.

It's likely WiiU goes into 2015 still trailing GC by a few million, as that 7.69m figure will not be easy to overcome. 4m for Gamecube in its third full year is on par with WiiU's life so far (4m over 4 Q's Gamecube, 6m over 6 Q's WiiU). So WiiU is going to have to perform at least 50% above its performance so far, in its 3rd year, which would be some sort of record for Nintendo (Nintendo consoles peak far far earlier than the industry average which is 3 years. (Wii shipped the most units in 2008, Gamecube the most in 2003, 3DS in its launch year, for some reason Nintendo hardware is frontloaded).

2016 onwards isn't really worth talking about as sales will be very low for WiiU at that point.

Opinions?

Cuz MK8 preorders are tracking at MK7 levels. MK7 sales total over 9 million now. While people say MK8 can't 'save' the WiiU, MK7 did play a big role in 'saving' the 3DS.

Cuz it hasn't been priced under 250 yet. Even with the price cuts done already, the WiiU is still Nintendo's most expensive system ever put on the market.

Cuz we'll probably have a proper Zelda unlike when GC had Wind Waker. Non-cartoony Zelda games sell better.

Cuz the people who have largely written off Nintendo seldom take much interest in NIntendo anyway.

I don't the front-loaded trend will apply this time.

I voted Yes.

Because the market is bigger today and Nintendo has more IPs. Basically.

But, however, it will all come down to the lenght of years for the console. If Nintendo will let it "live" for as long as PS4 and X1, then yes it will beat GC, easily. But, as we all know there are more elements to this. What if MK8, Zelda U, Mario U, SSB etc. just fail/suck. And Nintendo do some really bad marketing decisions etc. Well, that wouldn't really help them.

People often talk about the X1 not released in as many markets as the PS4, and this is the reason they don't sell so much. Well, the Wii U is not released in Hong Kong yet, after over 1 year on the market.

So my answers is Yes, with a little doubt.

And of course I don't want them to fail. If they can sell 50+ millions I am very pleased.

Honestly, I hope Mario Kart doesn't save the Wii U and doesn't push it pass the GameCube. This way Nintendo will not repeat what they did for the Wii U which is delaying a major hardware sellng game (aka Mario Kart 8 and not Nintendo Land or a NSMB game that looks marginally better than the last console version graphic wise...) until one and half year after the system launched.

Do you know the meaning of delaying?