I mean on home consoles. Such a small install base will hurt their game sales a lot.

Nintendo is number one when it comes to local multiplayer, and is probably the only big developer left that makes it such a big part of their games. They are missing out on millions of customers that are interested in their games but already own another system.

I think this might be a good theory on the current state of the Wii U.

Which is why they have their handhelds to fall back on, so they don't need to sell out.

Except Wii U has already sold 8 times more than Virtual Boy ever did.

I know, and he covers that in the video.

That's to big a disparity for the comparison to hold much water, not to mention VB lasted a short 7 months while  Wii's already more than doubled that lifespan with no imminent end in sight.

You can't hook you're 3DS up to the big screen with 2-4 controllers and have a blast with friends and family. That's what makes games like Mario Kart and Smash Bros. so popular. But with such a small install base the amount of copies you can sell will be limited.

Mario Kart 7 on 3DS is still sitting pretty at 9.4m to date.

This thread is "salt in the wounds". I thought Wii sales was already accepted.

Anyway, too bad for the Wii U sales but Nintendo has been doing everything to sell less. And I agree with Rol post, they must be doing something different like the Wii and DS, and not the same as the others.

I don't think you could have fairly prediced the wii u sales until the 2012 e3. That was terrible.

Look at the e3 for the launch of the Wii. If they did a show half as good as that with a single launch game as compelling as twilight princess I would think that despite issues and despite still suffering an unavoidable reduction in sales next to the wii, they could have done far better than they did. Imagine if mario kart 8 or smash bros was a launch game, or even a far less popular franchise like f-zero. Zombiu was a new ip in a niche genre, New mario bros u was good but an ultra conservative game that didn't seem in any way next gen and nintendo land fulfilled an important role in being a quality minigame collection (I found myself playing it yesterday for the first time in ages) but it needed online play to really look like nintendo was moving forward.

They messed up on the consoles launch and didn't really show anything new. It also launched with a VERY slow and sluggish os. Who could have given the system a positive review the way it launched? Sure, it's has good games now and the os is less sluggish (though far from snappy), but the narative about the wii U has been sealed in many peoples minds. So much of the crit was avoidable: If they included the larger battery by default all the compaints about the gamepads battery life would be gone, if they delt with third parties to make sure the third party ports were all running at a decent framerate before launching, complains that the system was slower than last gen wouldnt have been as strong. If they paid the cost to keep rayman legends as an exclusive the software drought early in the wii U's life would have been partly plugged by a great exclusive.

They didn't get the games out on time and they let the public, blogs and media run amuck with unfaverable and often unfair stories on the wii u. Many today are still convinced it's less powerful than last gen and that's understandable because in terms of mere processing power they're right. I don't think Nintendo could have messed up more if they tried.

That said it's not all bad. Nintendo's at there best when they're a struggling underdog and the reaction to the wii u might be the kick up the ass they needed.