Given that of the ~22 million people who bought Wii Fit, ~20 million came back for Wii Fit Plus 2 years later, I wouldn't be so sure that the audience for these things has evaporated.

The Wii sold almost 50% more games than the PS3 over its lifespan. This stereotype that everyone bought it for Wii Sports and then chucked it in a closet isn't reflected in the sales numbers at all.

Games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit are mature IPs, in that they're aimed at actual adults who might not normally play a lot of video games. The problem the Wii U is having is that Nintendo threw a lot of money at 3rd party development for games like Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2 which don't really push the system's unique feature (its gamepad) and don't hit that broad audience like the Wii did.

It's a bizarre shift in strategy from a company that really should've known better.

My contention is that the market is not large enough to sustain Nintendo's hardware development costs and they will be forced to exit the market after the next handheld system flops (or possibly the system after that). People who think everything is just fine must believe Nintendo can survive on ~2 million/year sales or possibly even less. If they do survive, the systems will be limited to almost entirely Nintendo games with relatively few 3rd party titles due to the small install base.

This year to date in Japan, the 3DS has sold ~3.6 million. All other systems combined have sold ~2.4 million. That kind of market dominance guarantees there will be a 4DS, that's where the next mainline Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest entries will wind up, and those will keep the platform going for the foreseeable future based on the 3+ million games they sell per release.

Since over 100 different Wii titles sold over a million units, and the platform sold over 870 million games, customers seem to have found quite a few titles worth purchasing. Though not surprisingly, the top 10 best selling games all came from Nintendo.

The Wii's success was mostly a fluke caused by MS and Sony raising prices too much, and a couple of gimmicks that were worth some attention by some: motion controls, and wii fit.

That was no fluke; it was the logical extension of the same strategy that made the DS so successful after a rocky start. Nintendo built a system with a unique feature (motion control), made new IPs that leveraged that feature (Wii Sports, Wii Fit), targeted the nongamer crowd by offering a pleasant "Mii" aesthetic and offered classic Nintendo franchises for everyone else (Mario Kart). The end result was wildly successful.

By contrast, the Wii U is bombing because although it also has a unique feature (gamepad), its new IPs are mostly niche titles (Wonderful 101) instead of mainstream ones and the next iterations of Nintendo franchises are either also niche (Pikmon) or late (Wii Sports, Mario Kart).

if (var = NULL) {/*error*/}

isn't what anybody wants, whereas mixing assignment and conditionals may make sense in other contexts, like:

if (NULL == (var = func())) {/*error, var is NULL*/}

The "we'd like your thoughts" link is a standard mailto: URL. If it's using Outlook, that's because your browser is configured to use it.

Even if you don't wind up doing a better job, reinventing the wheel is a good way to understand how wheels work. So the effort isn't wasted if one learns something at the end of it.

I don't have any trouble getting Python code to run without either, and run into problems due to whitespace approximately 0 times per year. Python the language only requires that code blocks be indented consistently. And since you're the one having problems with that, perhaps your development environment is defective since the files you're feeding the interpreter aren't what you think they are. If that's the case, you'll need all the help you can get.

It's not about switching to Intel CPUs, it's about switching to Intel for fabbing Apple ARM CPUs.

But in general, swapping out a whole new CPU would mean a lot of application migration which is best avoided.

When playing Wii games, the Wii U isn't emulating anything. It switches to a hardware compatibility mode and essentially becomes a Wii. And since the Wii doesn't know how to talk to the pad, the pad shuts down. This is exactly how the Wii handled Gamecube compatibility - which is one way to guarantee games will work.

Also, Wiimotes show up just fine for games that support them. There's even an option to pair them in the Wii U's home menu. It's actually rather nice to not have to buy a whole new set of controllers when moving to the next generation for once.

The Wii also never played DVDs, so it's no surprise the Wii U doesn't play Blu Rays, DVDs or any other non-game media.

Oh, and the OS GUI was recently patched to more than halve application switching times and support background downloads.

What's hard to figure out is just what Nintendo's 1st party studios have been doing all this time, since support for the Wii effectively ended a long time ago. It seems like the transition to HD has hit them with the same difficulties a lot of other Japanese studios faced. So crucial software is in short supply and titles original slated for the launch window are still months away from actual release.

But as you say, it is possible for Nintendo's 1st party output to carry a system to profitability. The Gamecube era was, after all. So it's doubtful Nintendo has much to worry about whether the Wii U ultimately turns around to mass market success or not.