So just to check; Windows is like malware because it's badly coded, but it's also unlike malware because it's badly coded.

I love Slashdot.

You may think I accidentally copied your joke*. The truth is we made the same joke twice, in quick succession, to get through background noise.

*(despite specifically looking through the replies to see if someone had already done it before I posted... how did I miss this?)

I think it's clear the article summary was sending out two versions of the same sentence one after another to cut through background noise.

Good catch, thanks for that!

As long as you're fixing thing, take "literally" out of there. It's literally the exact wrong way to use it.

I stopped after "literally a dime a dozen". Unless we're talking at a discount book shop closing sale or a car boot, the word is "figuratively".

Are you kidding me? The market's flooded with 1080p monitors, and the price almost doubles the moment you go over 1920 x 1200. So come on, details; what monitor have you got, and how much did it cost you?

If it just wasn't doing as well as the Wii did when it launched, I'd entirely agree; the Wii had one of the best openings for a console ever. The problem is it isn't selling as well as the Wii is now. In fact, the only mainstream gaming system, home or portable, that's selling worse at the moment is the original DS (and only just). Given that it's the newest, most powerful system out there, that's absurd. Currently, for ever 23 people who buy a Wii U, 29 people buy a Wii classic, and well over 200 buy a PS3 or 360. Even in Japan, the Wii U is being outsold almost 2 to 1 by the PS3. These are 6 year old systems, and they're not that much cheaper.

If you feel the market wants the Wii U, then why is everyone buying these other consoles over it?

While you can certainly argue the Wii U isn't in completion with the PS3 or 360... That doesn't alter the fact that it's just plain failing to sell, entirely on its own merits. Currently, its weekly sales are roughly 15% what the original Wii was selling at the same point in it's lifespan. In fact, its weekly sales are less that the Wii is selling now. You're probably right the the XBox One sales will fail to meet predicted sales, but given one MS guy was saying he thinks over a billion consoles will be sold this generation, that's a pretty easy target to miss!

Just one slightly off topic observation to make. Your subject line and first sentence are about how the Wii U doesn't compete with the other consoles, and should be taken on it's own merit... And then your next sentence goes on to compare them. Leading into broad insulting generalizations about the people who buy them. That's... well, that's an interesting approach.

False logic. Yes, SEGA failed because they had a string of failed consoles... But that doesn't mean that's the only path to failure, plenty of other companies have come and gone over the years for all kinds of reasons. Business is tricky like that. And, actually, who said that ditching hardware and focusing on software is a failure anyway? It's what Nintendo is best at, I'd love them to move to cross-platform development. OK, it wasn't the best for SEGA but, again, Nintendo aren't SEGA as there's no reason to think they'd have the same issues.

With that said, you are quite correct that, even if the Wii U doesn't turn itself around, Nintendo have enough money to absorb the loss and move on; 3DS sales won't hurt either. I do have to wonder what they'd have to pull out of the bag with the next home console to have another success, however... Over the past decade or so, Nintendo consoles have traditionally been cheap but underpowered with respect to the competition, with poor third party developer support, and a focus on party games, and the current market doesn't want that. No matter what, Nintendo is going to have to go for something that "doesn't suit them" if they want to carry on in the home market.

The Wii U is not "doing rather well". It's being outsold by the the original Wii, and sales for both are a fraction of the sales for the 360 or PS3. When the Vita is outselling your old console, and your new console is doing worse than that, that's almost the dictionary definition of "in trouble".

As someone who has been a lifelong Nintendo owner, I completely disagree.

Nintendo have had an edge on the competition in terms of games quality historically, but this is something they've lost as the generations have gone on. The problem they have nowadays is the new Smash Bros, Zelda, and Metroid titles are the only things they do have, and you just can't build a console around a handful of titles like that. With the Gamecube it could be argued they'd trimmed off the fat and were left with a relatively small set of universally high quality games, but with the move to the Wii, they started cutting off the meat. The game selection for the Wii U is tiny and doesn't look like getting much bigger any time soon, and those franchises you mentioned are all a long way off from appearing. Likewise, PS3/360 have plenty of quality games... more than Wii, certainly... And unless you're buying everything day one, I'm doubtful they're more expensive either.

I'm genuinely sorry, but the Wii U is lost cause. Wii was a success not because it was a good system, but because it made a grab for none-traditional gaming markets and succeeded... But that market isn't as a rule interested in buying a new system now they've got one. Nintendo tried to reach them again, and the result is flatlining sales, and developer support (which they've desperately needed for a decade now) being lost. The Wii original is currently selling more systems per week than the Wii U everywhere but Japan (with sales there still being low), and the combined weekly sales for the 2 systems are lower than the 360, PS3, or 3DS.

You are right in that Sony and Microsoft are going to struggle this time round... they've both made some very risky choices in how they're focusing the systems abilities and how they're handling used games etc... But Nintendo isn't to thank for that, and they're certainly not going to have an easy ride because of it.

This implies (or assumes?) that people who want a gaming-specific system will outright reject anything that does have extra things they don't need, instead buying whatever the latest gaming-focused system is, regardless of quality... And that if they don't, their complaints were false.

That doesn't fit at all. People don't just decide on a choice based on one factor, they find the best fit between several... And, imo, will probably be more inclined to budge on "isn't weighed down with useless functionality" than "doesn't have a cripplingly limited range of mostly gimmicky games". That doesn't make a complaint about the lack of gaming focus valid, it just means its the best of a bad situation. Personally, I've already decided not to bother with any of the next gen systems.

"The word 'want' might not apply at all to someone 1000 times smarter than us."

Or alternatively, it might. What was the point again?