It will sell very good in the first 2 years. After that, it will really depend on how good their first party titles are. That's my prediction... I don't think it will flop, but I wish they had brought this to market a bit sooner than next year.
Nintendo will have good third party support until 2013 and even be ahead in terms of graphics on a lot of games, and after that it will start to decline because the other systems are indeed way more powerful. However, because of the similar programming structure to x360(IBM PPC) it shouldn't be too hard to still create very interesting and good looking games for Wii U and give developers more interest in the platform. I think we have gotten to a point where all games are looking good. But you're right, when the next systems come they won't easily be able to port it down to Wii U because of the performance difference. That being said Zelda HD still looked amazing, that won't change if the rest is even much better looking. Therefore I am interested in buying a Wii U but relatively speaking the Wii U is going to be in the exact same position as the wii is now compared to 360. My personal view is that Nintendo is trying to get a head start and has made a start to break away from the productcycle of the big guys. They can't win on hardware power and they don't want to. Their target audience is still the widest of the three and their philosophy is different because they want to make money on every console sold from day 1 whereas MS and PS are at costprice or even subsidizing at the start. What I would do in terms of strategy is try to get halfway in the cycle and bring out a console that is a little bit better than what was out there. That way you can still make money on every console and the competition can't react immediately without losing lots of money.
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