all i meant by lowball is that they feel its possible to surpass that number, i may have used the word incorrectly tho.

Perhaps you should listen to what you just said. Wii U had DK, Wii Fit, Wii Party, and Mario. A Mario game, by the way, while in spite of being awesome, many people were just not that enthusiastic for, because they felt it was too similar to 3D Land, and thus the hype was far less than it could have been, on account of many folks simply not considering 3D World to be the TRUE "next gen 3D Mario". So in other words, as has been stated many many many times before, Wii U, price cut or not, simply has NOT had the games to really sell it to the masses in droves. That is also to say nothing of the relative lack of serious ad media in NA.

And yes, they can/are "lowballing" their investors, at least in the sense that if they set their sales expectations low, and exceed them, it makes them come out smelling like roses. You act as if they're going to get in trouble for a twisting of honesty or something, when quite frankly, their OVER-optimistic sales forecast for last year was far too generous, and not being entirely honest, if you want to put it that way. So yeah, "lowballing" the expected figures is a far better approach. If they honestly didn't expect MK8 and SB to have that big of an impact, then why the hell would they even be bothering? They'd just do what so many of you have (hilariously, and erroneously) suggested, and pull a Sega, abandoning Wii U, and rushing out new hardware that would (obviously) magically change everything and do great.

Let's not go calling a franchise whose lowest selling new titles can pretty much be expected to sell 3-4 million units (let's not count Minish Cap... I don't really know what to think of sales there...) niche. There's a pretty big space to inhabit between "global phenomenon" and "niche". I mean, you've got Persona as an avatar and Star Ocean as a username, I think you know things get a lot more niche than Zelda! :p

They're setting the bar low to get detractors off their back while the numbers roll in during the year.

Who do they have to impress with the forecast anyway? Their stock price can't go much lower, and half of all gamers are expecting them to axe the system altogether.

They are being conservative, but more like they are being realistic. Iwata can't throw out a bullsh*t forecast this year because his leadership position is up for a vote of confidence from the shareholders in June.

If he made an overly optimistic projection again and say Mario Kart doesn't give a big boost, it could fuel anger from investors who on the fence on Iwata if he looked so wildly out of touch again. 

I almost suspect Nintendo may have been able to release Mario Kart a month or so earlier but opted for a late May launch so the shareholder meeting in June could not be swayed by a post-Mario Kart Wii U lull that would damage Iwata's chances with shareholders voting on him. 

If they launched in April or early May, investors would be able to see if Wii U sales dip back down after the initial few weeks of sales. 

lol. Wii U had Wii Fit U, Wii Play U, NSMBU, all these games sold 30 million copies on Wii. MK8 will have similar results on WiiU, it will not change anything. Smash Bros is not as big a franchise as is Zelda. They both sold less than 10m on Wii. On top of that, if Smash Bros wont do good, your excuse will be: "it was available on 3DS months before it came to WiiU so people already bought it!".

They cant lowball, period, lol why would they even lowball? Wii U isnt gonna sell any better in the coming year and Nintendo is expecting this.

Games or not, Wii U just isnt gonna turn its fortunes, the problem lie deeper than its software problem. I cant believe there are people who expect 1 or 2 single games to turn the fate of Wii U around.