I think some of the below Wii U sales predictions (such as the one here) were a bit ridiculous, but they articulated a number uncertainties that could have harmed the system at launch. Some of these uncertainties remain and could be troublesome for the system in the future. The price, the average buyers reaction to paid online being introduced later this year (I think a great deal of non-tech savvy users might not realize the free online is its trial period and so there could be blow back once they realize they have to pay even a small fee to continue playing games online), and a steady lineup of both new (balance of first party evergreens, first-party B games, some third-party exclusives and a few ports of newer games, third-party Indies) and old games (ports of older games from Wii U and last gen, and/or VC-like service).

The Switch has done very well in its first year, but a console, just like any other consumer oriented device, needs to extend its sales curve for as long as possible and thus we cannot set its success in stone so early in its life. Nintendo will need to maintain momentum with the system in order to continue substantially increasing its installbase in order to make the system viable and hence successful. IMO, the point of viability would be between 30 million - 50 million units. Once we reach those numbers and the system's position on the market becomes more established then I think we could start breaking out the champaign and celebrating.

You would not dare argue it was a success though, right? Success makes the, "out of touch" argument very uphill. People lopsidedly cherrypicked the failure while ignoring the success. They can be blamed because they made that decision.

Sometimes it pays not to listen to the customer.

In this case Nintendo's vision was spot on.

Thank god for portable Zelda. And Switch shut my mouth as hardware.

It felt like christmas again.

But that's the point... when it was first revealed, there wasn't a lot of info on games (exclusives in particular). We got Arms and 1-2 Switch, which were basically shovelware, we got Zelda, which was a WiiU port, and Mario Odyssey, which was a ways away.

Also, hardware innovation is great, but only when it's done right. In this case, it paid off (and I guess most 3rd party games not coming to WiiU really was a matter of sales and not hardware power), but it was something to be cautious about considering the previous generation (Gamepad killed the WiiU, and the 3DS was great in spite of 3d, not because of it).

You're speaking my mind, though as long as Nintendo continues a steady game output, I don't see why it can't succeed. Besides the gamepad inflating the WiiU's price, there were big droughts in between releases. That's not a problem for the Switch so far, so I'm optimistic.

Nintendo is actually so in touch with what many gamers and consumers want that it makes, at the very least, Microsoft seem like they are out of touch. Even Sony at times. Power isn’t everything and look at what Nintendo is able to do without it. Nobody can ever say that Nintendo has no clue. They take big risks and bide their time which doesn’t always pay off, but when it does, wow. Just be glad Switch is one of those times. Get it; enjoy it.

If Nintendo had ditched the 3D from the start, and came out with a $200 XL model during holidays 2011, they would have wound up selling over 100 million of the things by now. 3DS was too small, too expensive, and had no games as launch. It hurt it quite a lot. 

Gaming community is the wrong word: the part of the gaming community invested enough to talk about that on internet forums to strangers was apparently out of touch. Other parts of the gaming community probably just thought (without announcing it on the internet): hey, that Switch-thingy looks nice. Probably I should get one to play while I am on the loo.

S.Peelman said: Switch may have went on to become successful, but 1-2-Switch is still a useless non-game and an insult to my intelligence though.

And a million-seller.

Nobody is out of touch.

It's just old fashioned console wars and doomtalk that narrows views. Once you get that snowball rolling, it's hard to stop.

What is important, is that when you're wrong, you at least admit it and move on.