Couldn't disagree more about the name and marketing. The 3ds did and is still doing just fine despite its name/terrible marketing.

The problem with the Wiiu is that it was never considered a cool product to own. The masses had a wii, but then upgraded to a ps3/xb360 and then never looked back. They enjoyed games that couldn't be done on wii and games that weren't released on it because the publishers simply didn't want to. With either a ps3/360 you have greater variety of games to enjoy and by that I mean hugely popular games like COD, Minecraft, and Fifa. I'm not sure what versions of these games wiiu got but they must have been in some way inferior. These games are what gets people talking and convincing their friends to get a system for. Wiiu relies on old franchises that don't get people talking. Heavy Rain does. Skyrim does and so does Diablo and even Journey. Pretty sure Wiiu didn't get any of those games, so the masses have no reason to buy one. The only ones who have one are the hardcore Ninty fans who have a deep appreciation of Ninty exclusives. But those are not that many and, it seems to me, not enough to make a console profitable.

And January 2015 was bigger than January 2014 and looks like the same will be said of February.  Also a great software lineup this year and a likely pricecut coming.

Right now I'm estimating that the wiiu will sell around 26 million lifetime. It's based on the rule of thumb with Nintendo consoles that at the end of peak sales year the system will have sold approx 50% of lifetime sales. If 2014 was peak year then it likely won't catch cube. But I think this year will be peak.

January in the US was up.  In Japan it was down.  Between the two it was down.  Though the Japanese decline YoY in February is smaller, so that may be more balanced out if VGC sales are close to reality.  Europe, as far as I know, doesn't have any sales info for 2015 other than VGC.  It could be trending like the US, but I try not to take VGC numbers on face value.

26m wouldn't even be the "at least 6 million" that you said though.  That does seem like a more realistic (if still a bit optimistic) expectation.

I'm basing everything on vgchartz.  2015 january vgchartz were up year over year worldwide. And so far 100,000 in feb for 2 weeks.  I take comparing vg chartz to vg chartz at face value. If i didn't respect vg chartz i'd probably not talk about game sales on vgchartz.

The other thing you have to look at here is, though everything you said is true, all 3 console companies competition isn't just the other console companies, it's also all devices that people can play games on. If a parent is going out and buying their kid an Apple or Android device that can play games on it, more then likely they're not going to get that kid a dedicated gaming device. Same can be said for that parent or adults in general who is building a gaming grade PC.

On PC's and mobile devices, you don't have to wonder if things are cross buy, or if you can invite your friends to the games, or if your games are tied to your accounts, or if can chat with friends while you play your games, etc.  No, they have all these features built in and they work. If I buy Dungeon Defenders on Steam for instance, I know I can run it on my Mac or my PC with 1 single purchase, I can invite my friends to play with me, friends can also jump in and play with me when they see me on, I can type chat with friends in game, I can use Steams built in messaging service to text chat or voice chat with friends, I can have skype or another service to chat with friends, I can redownload and play my game at any time on anythings that's Steam enabled so I won't have to send my old and new computer to Valve to get my game(s) put back on it, and there's no region restrictions.... These aren't even the big things either that I can talk about when I got the game, no, just basic features that you'd expect from all modern online gaming services.

This is an area that the consoles are lacking but especially Nintendo systems. Back in 2005, the Wii U's online could have gotten by and wouldn't have been a big deal. In 2015 when the competition includes all these other options for people to get and play games, it's a huge deal. This is no longer just a hardware issue, this is a straight up service issue.  I can't invite my friends to play with me, I can't communicate when I play online via voice or text chat in most Nintendo games, there's no cross game chat at all, if something happens to my system I'll lose my games forever, none of my virtual console games work across all my Nintendo devices, and the systems are region locked. Again, it's 2015... not 2005.... The Wii U gamepad and 3DS have everything they need built in to have an awesome online experience, I mean heck they have a freaking mic and software keyboard built into both of them. There's no excuse at this point.

For the FY 2003 Nintendo posted a profit, they also posted a profit for all the years of the Gamecube (FY 2001-2006).

Here is a chart with "Sales" data for the Fiscal Years 2001 - 2006 with separate info for Handhelds and Consoles (and Other Hardware).

Below are sales for the years that are covered by the Gamecube:

Console and Handheld Sales for FY 2001-2006 (Hardware + Software) in Millions JPY (¥)

Gamecube was released near the tail end of 2001 (JP/NA)
DS was released near the tail end of 2004 (JP/NA)
Wii was released near the tail end of 2006 (JP/NA) 

Couple notes:

• The main years of the Gamecube 2002-2005 had higher percentages of sales coming from software on the console side.
• "Other Hardware" (controllers, peripherals, memory cards,..etc) also had very healthy sales during the Gamecube years.

The older VGC numbers don't exist in a vacuum.  Before NPD, VGC had Wii U at 86k in January 2014.  Now it is at 58.6k.  Just because they are both on VGC doesn't mean the numbers are reached in identical manners.

I think you'll find most people on VGC tend to take the numbers with a grain of salt.  For instance in the thread for the most recent week's numbers the word 'undertracked' appears 18 times in just the first page.  'Overtracked' is there 6 times.  Even on this thread there was someone claiming a piece of software was immensely undertracked.  Though in this case VGC seems to be closer to the truth.  Despite this people still discuss sales on VGC because it is a community of people interested in sales, and VGC can be a convenient archive of older sales data (though I wouldn't put 100% faith in that either.  Various things can screw up older numbers and generally nobody is going back through them to check for errors).

The 3DS name is bad too and I thing it could have done a little better with a new name.  Remember it's seen a massive decline too although most of the blame is on the growth of mobile.  It just sounds like an upgrade to the DS.  Although I suppose it kinda is. 

99 is so cheap I could buy one every week!

not enough games. nintendo cannot go on on its own.

they need to do something quickly!
limited edition, price cut, bigger memory will help too...

Oh so you can combine GC and Wii but I can't combine consoles?  

Anyways I will just leave this little debate by saying these things:

-The original point someone made was that Zelda could be some mega open-world adventure game that dominates the genre and moves units

-I showed that Zelda is no where near a genre defining title anymore.  The truth hurts to some.

Disagree all you want but the evidence is everywhere.