Don't now about all y'all, but this Wii U thing kinda reminds me of the SEGA  situation when they launched the Dreamcast and I feel like Nintendo may have just one last chance here to get some things right they haven't for a long time (e.g. online play, decent third party games, multi function device) . Or they are done in the console business for good.  I really hope I'm wrong.
 
A reputation is hard to regain when you've lost it, and I think Nintendo really hurt themselves in the long run by not getting the Wii platform to live up to its' software or hardware potential. They may have the largest install base this round, but they lost a lot of the hardcore  and casual gamers are notoriously fickle. I think the causal market has largely moved onto multi use devices like the ipad. A misstep here could be disastrous.

Unlike when they launched  the Wii their financial situation has now become somewhat precarious and their money maker backup, the handheld market, is starting to slip away from them. I I think it's safe to say the 3DS's semi dud of launch has really hurt them.  The Gameboy platforms used to be their cashcow .The Smartphone revolution has taken their monopoly away from them.  And may serve as final proof that game only device philosophy that Nintendo espouses is not a winning one in the marketplace.
 
they recently announced they are going to lose nearly a Billion dollars (US dollars) in the first 6 months of this year, which is highly unusual for a company that I've never known to be anything but profitable.  

 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-27/nintendo-predicts-first-annual-loss-in-30-years-after-cutting-3ds-price.html 

 

Nintendo Co., the world’s largest maker of video-game machines, forecast its first annual loss in at least 30 years after the yen reached a postwar high and the new 3DS console had weaker-than-expected sales.

The net loss may be 20 billion yen ($264 million) for the year ending in March, compared with a previous projection for a 20 billion-yen profit, Kyoto, Japan-based Nintendo said in a statement yesterday. That compared with the 12.2 billion-yen average profit of 22 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg....
 
Nintendo also reported a first-half loss of 70.2 billion yen, wider than the 2 billion yen loss a year earlier