Look at the Wii sales. Wii peaked in 2008, and we all remember 2011 and 2012, where it sold like crap due to a low library. What if Nintendo pushed wii U until 2017 and had a huge supply of games up until that point. The reason I'm saying this is because in 2012, Wii had around 3 games released by Nintendo. Last year the only "system sellers" for Wii U were Pikmin 3, WindWaker HD, and 3D World. If they do this in reverse maybe the sales could still be high.

i dont think so.
the beggining of wii was awesome. if wii u end was proportional to wii beggining, it wont be the end of wii u.

i would bet in ps3 curve, but in moderated level and shorter life spam.

No console will ever again match the commercial success of the Wii.It was truly unbelievable how popular it was. I remember(as a Sony fan) how unreal it was to predict season after season that 'yes, now the 'fad' will end' but was always proven wrong.

The Wii U will not turnaround to match this success. IMO no console will. Some other thread is already showing where the Wii is now Lifetime to date ahead of PS4. The Wii was seriously a beast unto itself

Nope, not gonna happen. Look at it this way, every platform has a dedicated loyal install base of anything between 10-25ml gamers. Those are the people that will buy the box even if everyone tells them its whack. Then the rest are people that buy a console because its whats popular, what their friends are playing, cheaper, more powerful or whatever combination of these factors you can imagine.

Problem with nintendo is that its dedicated instal;l base has dwindled to a point where its almost non existant. You know that vocal minority ppl always refer to on forums when trying to generalize forum activists? Well, in nintendo's case that minority are probably the only ones actually buying the WiiU for now. This may change, but not by much... cause as it stands, this time now is the least competition Sony/MS is gonna ever pose to nintendo; and nintendo are losing. People talk about nintendo having more games or whatever else, its not like sony and MS will be sitting on their hands doing nothing. In addition to that, those consoles will also get cheaper with time, so no. Things aren't gonna just turn around for the wiiU

I think at the end of the day the Wii U will have a competent install base to not be deemed as a "failure". With the amount of games coming to it and the way Nintendo is finally starting to market it, I can see it surpassing the N64 in sales. I just can't see it doing as bad as the GameCube.

I hope that happens, but I doubt it since most, if not all consoles so far have sold in the same way:

Sells higher and higher until peak, then drops until discontinued.

Your theory is actually like this, but the console always moves less units at the end of the life cycle than it does in the beginning. 

WiiU is going to follow the Gamecube, low-key but ultimately profitable.

Nintendo's strong Indie support and efficient devkit might give them an unexpected boost.

Wii is currently the second fastest selling console, ahead of PS2 but behind DS.

Maybe...I think these are the years in which venerates more:

2015>2016>2014>2017>2013>2018>2012>2019>2020

And imho, for me will sold more of Nintendo 64 and GameCube, over 35,000,000 and i think 40,000,000.