Do you remember when, in 2002-2005, everybody thought Nintendo was going to drop out of the console race? Haha, those guys. Little did they know, right?

I guess, little did anyone know! I just figured Nintendo would release another more powerful console with a new controller (normal controller) but they went and made a wonderful thing, and are on their way to console domination. Did anyone here honestly expect this? I for one always wanted Nintendo to dominate again but I seriously doubted it was gonna happen this generation.

Who honestly thought Nintendo was going to do this well? Anyone?

 When I first heard about it back in '06 I knew the potential was there, but I definitely doubted that they could pull it off. And not because I thought it would be bad but because I thought all the fanboy troll hatred excuses that got used on the Wii were going to be able to demean it enough to make it un-ownable.  I am glad I was wrong about that though. And I put my money where my mouth was and got one on Day 3 of launch week.

Well when I heard about the Wii controller, the first thing I thought is, it will sell loads because in my mind i thought, what's better pressing square to do a lob in tennis, or motioning it with your own hand. My mentality was always, this will sell. I was slightly taken aback that the graphics capability wasn't going to be as powerful as the 360 and ps3, but i appreciated the fact that they had to make it so it would be in the mass market budget. I got mine on the day of launch- Dec 8th in the UK. =D

Me, being a Nintendo fan, did not ever expect this. When I saw the Wii remote I was sooo excited and loved it the minute i saw the videos of how it worked. But I always had the sinking feeling that only the Nintendo faithfulls will buy it.

I think this is the only time in my life that I'm happy I was wrong. Seriously.

I didn't expect the Wii, but I sure as hell didn't expect Nintendo to drop out of the console race either. Typically a company only does that if they can't turn a profit in that sector, and the Gamecube was plenty profitable.

My first thought when I saw the Wii Remote was "Wow, this has a lot of potential to be awesome, but it also has a lot of potential for immature people to piss all over it, like every other Nintendo product."  I'm glad the general public turned out to be more mature than I gave them credit for, and are willing to try the Wii.

I didn't see Nintendo leaving the console market, but I didn't see this level of success either. When the motion controls were revealed I knew the Wii/Rev would do quite a bit better than the Cube, but again, didn't see it going this well. I really thought after Christmas 07 Sony would have surpassed MS and never been behind Nintendo in the first place. Of course, crap happens: like a ($)600 pound monkey on your back, the masses buying Nintendo consoles again, and every 360 owner buying 300 games a month.

Do you remember when, in 2002-2005, everybody thought Nintendo was going to drop out of the console race?

I would not say "everybody" mostly sony/xbox fanboys. Nintendo have had the most profitable console every gen.
I dont think anybody could have guessed how well wii would do and how poor the ps3 would do.

Well said misteromar

I don't want to do a John Lucas, but from the moment I saw e3 2006 stampede I knew the Wii was going to be huge.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/top/e306-clips-e3-morning-stampede-173469.php

unfortunately the video is no longer up but if you do a google search for "Nintendo e3 2006 stampede" I'm sure you'll find a similar story. Public interest for the Wii was absolutely huge and Sony completely screwed up their e3 which made it easy.

during gamecube days, I thought that Nintendo won't be able to play a more important role in the console races anymore because I had the feeling that Big N has done a lot of things right they screwed up during N64 days, but it didn't help at all.

When I heard about Sony releasing a handheld, I really started to fear, and I did not believe that the DS will be able to outsell the PSP. After I was proven wrong on this, I was more optimistic, but when I heard about the Wii and that it'll be controlled differently, I did not think about sales but about the question if I will like this way to play. This attitude did not really change until I could play Twilight Princess finally which showed me that classic games are still possible on the Wii. (As a fanboy, I bought the Wii at launch despite my uncertanity, only because it was Nintendo and because of the games that were announced.)

As I said, I did not think about sales a lot, but I didn't really expect it to sell that well anyway, I'd already been happy if it had sold slightly better than the Cube, just to make a turn into the right direction.