The 3DS graph is completely unafected by launch of the Wii U. If they were competing, even by a little, you would see the 3DS shrinking when the Wii U was growing.

Ok, I will tell ya what I think.

Nintendo was NOT ready to release WiiU back in 2012. A lot of mistakes, not ready to go hardware and the worst... not enough games to justify buying the system apart from the factor of the new. Instead, they should have focused on Wii, bringing more new games on it and keeping the exciting on that console WHILE planning a proper WiiU release. And I believe that if it was released near the time of PS4/Xbox1 that would have helped lots.

But even though the early and messy release, we get a long period of no new games and lack of 3rd party. From bad to worse. Nintendo needed over one year to actually do proper work on WiiU! Since MK8 and E32014, the sales of WiiU have improved lots and it shows that the console CAN compete the other 2.

What is next? More good games and try to gain as much as possible 3rd party support. Needless to day that promotion of the WiiU is fucking critical!!! The first TV ad I have seen was the MK8. Unacceptable!

I am still sure WiiU can have HUGE legs if the right things are done.

And 3DS is not WiiU's enemy but not a friend as well.

The data does support it; 3DS is cheaper, has similar games, and is selling more.

im pretty sure thats not how things work, its not like there is a predetermined amount of people who will buy Nintendo devices each week and when one goes up, the other drops.

What the op means is that Wii U & 3DS are aimed at the same demographics, some will buy one, some will buy the other and some will buy both. The problem is unlike Wii & DS, which each had many games and features not found on the other, Wii U & 3DS are extremely similar in terms of software and features. 3DS has a huge advantage in price and amount of big games available so more people are choosing it over Wii U.

Well now since it seems like Nintendo is focusing more on Wii U based on there announcements at E3 this year. The only new 3DS game that was announced was Codename: S.T.E.A.M. We already knew about the Gen III remakes for Pokemon so really Pokemon and Smash are the only things to look forward to on the 3DS for the rest of the year. As for Wii U, we have Hyrule Warriors, Bayonetta 2, Captain Toad and Smash Bros all releasing before the end of the year. 3DS is taking a break and the Wii U is finally becoming Nintendo's main focus.

Gameboy was cheaper than the SNES, had similar games, and was selling more.

PSP was cheaper than the PS3, had similar games, and for a while, was selling more.

If there was competition between the platforms, we would see 3DS shrink proportionally to Wii U sales  when that released. But it doesn't, it just chugs along like nothing happened.

You're contradicting yourself.

The Wii U and Wii are pretty even in actual game quality at the same respective point in their lifecycles. 

The only difference is one doesn't have a successful gimmick tied to it that's bringing in casuals. 

That doesn't make one console so much higher quality than the other. The Wii was a re-dressed GameCube with a horribly limited OS, at least the Wii U is some kind of tangiable real upgrade (even if it's still far behind the competetion in many respects) from the previous Nintendo console. 

What is contradicting about that? Im sure u can agree that PS3 & 360 appealed to the same demograhpic, did one drop everytime the other had a boost? Perhaps I just didnt explain well enough.

In previous generations Nintendo handhelds and consoles were very different and had key games to differentiate them. SNES had high end graphics for the time along with popular arcade ports, games like Donkey Kong Country, Star Fox, Mario Kart, Street Fighter II werent on the Gameboy which had ancient hardware but excellent pick up and play games perfect for portables like Tetris and later Pokemon during the N64 era which had the first 3D worlds for popular Nintendo ip and the console FPS crowd on lockdown with Goldeneye/Perfect Dark. GBA had beautiful 2D games while Gamecube was continuing with more advanced 3D games.

Now onto DS/Wii, once again the visual gap was large but more importantly they each had different features and huge casual hits that werent on the other, DS had dual/touch screen controls along with games like Nintendogs & Brain Training while Wii had motion controls and games like Wii Sports & Wii Fit.

That brings us to 3DS/Wii U which have similar features and key software. Both have dual/touch screens and motion controls, both can competently produce 3D worlds and most of the big hitters on Wii U already have installments on 3DS.

3D Land vs 3D World, MK7 vs MK8, DKC Returns vs DKC Tropical Freeze, Ocarina of Time 3D vs Wind Waker HD, NSMB2 vs NSMBU, Smash Bros 3DS vs Smash Bros Wii U. On top of that 3DS also already has Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Paper Mario, Luigi's Mansion, Kid Icarus, Fire Emblem, Kirby, Yoshi, Mario & Luigi, brand new Zelda along with excellent Japanese 3rd party support like Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest, Youkai Watch, Kingdom Hearts, Resident Evil.

Now I would agree that most of those Wii U games are superior to the 3DS installments but with 3DS costing $129-199 and software at $30-40 against Wii U at $299-329 with software costing $50-60 and having a much smaller number of games, is it really worth it for a few superior sequels? For me and some others yes it is but for the majority of people interested in Nintendo products, 3DS gets the job done and they are happy with just it for the time being.

I think the PS4, zero/abysmal marketing and an initially overconfident Nintendo are the Wii U's worst enemies.

Good shit here, mate.