I think a price cut might get it to the 20-25 million area (much closer to 20 than 25 though). A lot of that depends on how the rumors of the new Nintendo hardware play out and, if it is indeed a new home console, how much they choose to support the Wii U afterwards.

If the numbers you have are indeed right then I can understand why people think that the Wii U might not even make it to the 15 millions mark.

When I did my brief calculation I simply looked at what N64/GC had sold lifetime and compared it to what Wii U had sold now, and used those numbers as the base, so I used a 4m/year average. Of course the sales goes up and down, especially in the beginning where as they rise and then decline at the end, so 4m in their second year is nothing to cheer about at all.  

Where did you find your numbers anyway? I would love to dig into some old numbers too, especially for the GC since Wii U seems to be heading down the same old road.

The problem with the WiiU (at least over here in the UK) is that it never really stood a chance in the first place. WiiU's demoed in store for the first year (and even now where you can find one) showed literally two games. A 2D Rayman, and a 2D New Super Mario Bros. That was your lot. Anyone casting an eye over that saw nothing that the current consoles couldn't do (in terms of eye candy) and nothing that the Wii wasn't already doing (albeit it with sharper visuals). And when you saw the price tag being asked for this, it was never going to sell.

It didn't help either that all it got really in the first 12 months was mostly last gen ports where Nintendo was asking an RRP of nearly 50% more than they were on other consoles. It was doomed to fail before it even got out of the starting trap.

I agree also that it will do well to get to 20 million. You would imagine it will make 10 million early in 2015 but then what? Anyone who wanted one for Nintendo titles you would think has already bought one for Mario Kart, Wind Waker HD, SSB etc. A new Zelda in 2015 isn't going to push sales up that much either as I can't imagine anyone who wants one hasn't already done so.

Its sad really, as Nintendo really do make the best games. But people these days aren't willing to lay down the money for a console to play literally a handful of titles over a period of years and not have anything else to play on it. There is way way better value elsewhere, either in the PS3 and Xbox which has an infinitely better software catalogue and the majority of games can be had now for next to nothing as well. And if you want something more up to date, people are just going with the XB1 and PS4 because it offers performance and variety which the WiiU just cannot match due to lack of 3rd party support.

Nintendo have to sort all of this out for the next console or else I fear it will fare even worse. Nintendo released the Wii U too early for me. They should have held it back 12 months, which would of lowered the cost of higher end hardware and at the very least might have allowed them to compete with the newer consoles and allowed for more ports of next gen games, rather than ports of the last gen ones.

15-20M.

My 2 cents.

vgsales.wikia.com

Looking back at the 7th generation I highly doubt that.

Then better look at this one, the doubts fades away  ;)

It miiiiight hit 20M. It'll be the low seller this gen. Don't make Nintendo embarrassed, they're working up payback right now. Gamecube to Wii era all over again.

Around 18 million.
The broad customership has yet to realize that the Wii U is a new console.
This combined with some casual hits from Nintendo AND a price cut will help to keep the sales up for the next 3 years.

I'm betting on 18M as reported by Nintendo (no vgchart figure).

Wii U will end FY14 with ~10.50M total shipped
In FY15 it will have a price cut as a final push, sales will hover around 4-5M
FY16 will be the last meaningful year of sales, ~2.5-3M

Holiday 2017 new Nintendo console