As I remember, Wii was destined to fall when first rumored/announced (the weakest of the three hardware-wise).

So, the next N console is destined to fail - same as Wii was.

To me, the largest factor behind the success of the next Nintendo system will be the final support of third party developers.

At first they didn't support the Wii because it was the follow up to the Cube, graphically inferior and sporting risky controls. Then they didn't support it because they'd already made their bed. Their money, dev time and subsequent fanbase all went HD, and attempts to swing back to the cheaper and more popular system didn't pay off to well.

You really think devs will ignore the next Nintendo system? Nope. They're going to be going goofy trying to get a piece of that pie. I suspect the next Nintendo system will see the best third party support in at least 3 generations.

That's so not true its not even funny, N64 was WAY better then Gamecube..

I disagree, on a few things, N64 wasn't a revolution, it was an evolution, more power.

Also the Revolution perfection strategy doesn't work and Nintendo knows it,  their greatest successes in consoles was Wii and NES and they know it, Nintendo is much more likely to try to revolutionize rather than perfect next gen.

The balance board and vitality sensor aren't just things Nintendo is throwing out, but rather test beds for the future, you want to know where Nintendo is going next, look at them.

Nint consoles can't be failure.... they are profitable :p

but sales wise, yeah it will probably need 60, so a solid second place to not be a failure with regards to the Wii.

360's followup will need to do 40M to confirm MS's numbers.

PS4.... well seeing the way they went with the Go, i'm gonna say it'll be a failliure once again for price reasons ^^ and sell in the 30M-40M range.

If you look at the historical performance of Nintendo they seem to do best when they are competing with asymmetric values or are targeting a new/emerging market; and the more established the market is, and the more similar they are to their competition, the worse Nintendo has performed.

To a certain extent, Nintendo will be forced to compete against Sony and Microsoft in a more symmetric market being that I expect Sony and Microsoft will make moves "Towards the Wii" to capture the new gamers the Wii attracted this generation; and Nintendo will make moves "Towards the HD consoles" to make the Wii more attractive to conventional gamers and third party publishers. Unlike the PS2/XBox/Gamecube generation I wouldn’t expect all three companies to produce slight variations of the same system and I do expect to see each company try to differentiate itself from the competition in more than marketing or processing power.

Overall, I see the next generation as being a good opportunity for Nintendo to recapture and build upon their success; and how well they perform really depends on whether they can broaden the appeal of the Wii to encourage adoption by their current install base, new gamers and established core gamers.