It worked pretty good for 360 I think, by the time the PS3 and Wii came out MS already got a decently sized fanbase and great third party support.

only if the your console is ready, the 360 was released way too early!

I'm not expecting anything to turn around. Just that the trend of year of year growth will continue next year.  Animal crossing sold over 3 million on gamecube and sold over 4 million on wii.. Game doesn't appeal to me but it brings in a different audience than other nintendo games. It targets the female demographic more. Xenoblade isn't out yet but will again pull in a different audience the hardcore JRPG audience.

Some people don't get it. It's a second console purchase.  The more great exclusive games it has and the lower the price the more likely gamers are to pick it up. The value as a second console just continues to increase as more exclusive content arrives on the system.

So based on 2 days of Smash sales in the united states you're suggesting it didn't have impact lol?  We won't know the impact until next week's numbers.

First of all we need to clear up some facts. A company's first obligation toward its shareholders is to make money. Being number 1 in terms of unit sales doesn't necessarily apply to making the most money.
Sometimes the costs releated to grabbing a larger market share are higher than the the extra money you make. Xbox vs GameCube is probably the best example of that, where Xbox was bleeding money during its whole life cycle, while GameCube actually was in the black quite early in its life cycle and stayed their for most of its life.
In some ways the same can be argued with Nintendo 64 vs PlayStation, where Nintendo 64 in terms of unit sales was 1/3 of PlayStation, but still managed to make money almost equal to Sony's monster success.

What does this have to do with being first to market? Well, considering the prime objective of a new hardware release is to make money (both longterm and short term), the timing of the release is mainly based on the need to overlap the end of its predecessor. In other words;

1. Dreamcast was released early because Saturn was dying, and Sega needed new cash flow.

2. Xbox 360 was released early because Xbox was dying.

3. Wii U was released first of this generation because the Wii was dying.

etc.


In other words, selling most units isn't as relevant as people seem to think. Most essential is to make as much money as possible on every single unit sold.

The slight upward trend that the WiiU is experiencing will not allow it reach 30 million and a tiny handful of modestly popular games is not going to help much. It will reach at most 9 million by the end of the year and I doubt that it will even reach 14 million by the end of of next year. You keep talking about the WiiU as the choice second console but what is this based on? After I buy a PS4 I will probably end up buying an XBOne because I don't want to play the same old Nintendo games again and I'm hardly the only one taking this approach. The GameCube had plenty of the same games and look how that turned out. Again, the WiiU doesn't have the slightest prayer of ever reaching 30 million LTD, it just isn't going to happen unless something drastic happens.

I agree with the point... but what's up with your 3rd Gen Atari in 1983 and the sales of the Genesis?