of course. atm it is the worst selling console. if the trend continues I agree with the sale projection but we didn't factor in the price cut which i think it will happen. If they have a price soon i believe sales would increase a bit. and Nintendo needs to get a few here and there 3rd party collaboration game which would help if Nintendo wanted to continue to support their console.

Alot of assuming on that post. Also ignoring price cuts.

The GC was going for 99euros on its final year. The Wii U still has a bit till it gets there. I dont buy the theories of a next system rush-in. It would accomplish nothing.

Alternatively the GC actually lost sales in the long term due to negative perception of value.  This has been vented as a theory for quite some time and I think there is merit on it. For instance, at the beginning of the 6th generation a lot of people thought the GC was weaker than the PS2 due to the lower price.  That might be also why Microsoft is failing on bring more momentum to the XOne. So I think it runs deeper than pricecuts = more sales.

That being said... I hope it sells at least 20 million.

False edit - I just checked 2008 numbers and if Nintendo manage to follow the sales pattern of the X360, they could sell some 46 million consoles 10 years in! That would be pretty good. Though I doubt Nintendo will play their hands as straight as that.

(fun fact, the Vita manages some 30 million by the same best case scenario)

Well its not just price that u have to take into account but also price compared to the competition. For the majority of its life, Gamecube was only $50 less than PS2/Xbox, the fact that those 2 played DVD videos automatically made them a better value.

So even if Wii U gets price cuts, it probably won't make a big difference since PS4/XB1 will likely get them as well and with Nintendo having lost money for the last 3 fiscal years, I don't think they are willing to take the risk of big price cuts. Probably a $50 cut this year and another $50 cut in Spring 2017 with a successor in Holiday 2017. I wouldn't be surprised if the official MSRP ever goes under $199.99, instead just let retailers do their own price cuts to get rid of excess stock once the successor releases.

As a side note, i believe the Wii hit that 100€ price by the time the Wii U released.

While what you say may be factored in, the biggest advantage of price drops is the product captures a whole new section of te market from the people not willing to pay more than X. The lower X, the most people will have the buying power to aquire one... though also, more casual the gamer will be and less games he/she will buy. Nintendo systems usually do well in these situations and people buy them to play that Mario or zelda game only. 

Thats the thing though. Why would they release a new home console so soon? They would have to have a pretty awesome idea to make it worth upgrading or simply to have it sell more than the Wii U.

I just dont see what Nintendo would gain from that scenario. Quite honestly, i'm not sure there is going to be another Nintendo home console. How would they manage to sell the next system to the people that didnt buy the Wii U? What would it have that the Wii U doesnt?

Looking at the japanese market, wich is their priority, i see their next portable coming out with the ability to hook up to the TV. Its the logical step. This system may even be a portable Wii U under a different name (DS-HD) and they might keep supporting both systems until the Wii U phases out. Same games beeing released in disc and cartidge aswell as digital. Once Wii U physical sales slow down, simply digital on both and cartidge on the portable. Both systems seeing equal support and the full atention of Nintendo software. 3rd parties in japan would have to jump in. West doesnt care and nothing will change that imo. Too much of an american mindset that clashes with Nintendo values ruling the 3rd party market for any big changes.

I hope you are right. I don't like the Wii-U as a hardware, but Nintendo has been doing a fairly good job with their games, and I don't want another generation that early, haha.

I wouldnt worry much. Contrary to internet naysayers Nintendo is a company that makes logical decisions from their japanese pov. The Wii U was a gamble, just like the Wii. But it ended up not paying off the same way. It was an honest mistake given the formula worked so well with the DS'.

But, Nintendo knows they are nothing without their fans and as Iwata has said, they wont burn their fans and rush into a new console gen. They are well aware of what that did to SEGA.

That's not so soon, that's 5 years from Wii U launch which is the same amount of time SNES/N64/GC each had. As for what can they do for theconsole? Well, myself and a few others on this site are pretty big advocates of the completely unified strategy, meaning 2 separate devices with the same architecture, operating system, online infrastructure, and software library. At this point, it would simply come down to preference, do u prefer playing on the go or playing on a TV? Here's a sample idea of what the specs could be like

NX Portable-300 gflop, 2gb RAM, 540p

NX Console-1.2 tflop, 8gb RAM, 1080p

Each of these devices could feasibly be sold for $249.99 at a profit in 2017. The fact that they no longer have to develop games for 2 completely separate devices ensures that they can have a strong software output. By no longer needing to make 2 separate entries of all their major franchises they can now make new ip at a faster rate (which increases their chances of finding the next big Pokemon/Nintendogs/Minecraft craze) and even bring back long dormant franchises that fans have been asking for (like F-Zero, Wave Race, Metroid).

With the right marketing, price and software output, I think we could feasibly see sales like 25 million for the console and 75 million for the handheld.