While the Wii U's results were discouraging, Nintendo's platforms as an aggregate outperformed the other console manufacturers," Divnich said. "Nintendo's platforms represented over 40 percent of the consoles sold in January. I have to wonder if the Wii and the Nintendo DS have longer legs than what we've all originally expected and whether Nintendo is competing more against itself than other console manufacturers.
When your old systems make up more parts of the pie than your new next-gen console, that's a problem. Although I'll be the first to admit that the economy has affected the whole industry and not just Nintendo.
I was talking about Nintendo in general when I was talking about the loyal fans and all
Interestingly enough, Nintendo seems to do best when their "loyal fans" froth at the mouth in anger. They loved the Gamecube, but that system was Nintendo's worst in terms of overall sales (for now anyway, because the Wii U is doing worse than the Gamecube right now). Now contrast that to the Wii...
Nevertheless...I view the WiiU as Nintendo's version of the Playstation Vita or the XBox Kinect
Here's the thing though: The Vita is a handheld (and Sony handheld haven't exactly been super successful) and Kinect is an addon. Nintendo needs the Wii U to carry them for the next few years.
Fun side-note: The Vita actually sold even fewer units than the Wii U.
Nintendo is competing more against itself than other console manufacturers.
This is all true though.