Indeed. Although the 3DS had a slow start, the original DS had a much slower start. It all took off properly once the DS lite was out.

Third party developers aren't even bothering to port games to the Wii U. Games are being cancelled left and right due to the low sales. Even an exclusive like Rayman Legends is now going multiplatform due to the fear of not making a profit on being an exclusive.
I'd pick up a Wii U if it actually had any games. I don't like Mario so there's nothing to entice me. Lego Undercover looks fun though, and unless Bayonetta 2 goes multiplatform as well, then maybe.

That has always been my biggest gripe too. I find all the PS controllers too small. For my PS2, I finally bought an adapter to allow me to use my XBox controller with it...helped tremendously!

Don't be fooled. The "traditional" gaming market in Japan is shrinking at an alarming rate. Right now near all the money is in "moba ge-" (social gaming on smart phones). Nintendo only appear to do well as most stores only sell Nintendo stock outside of the cities. In fact, it can be pretty hard to find stores with a decent PSP/Vita/PS3 library. Of stores that primarily stock Nintendo only, most of those carry a larger number of DS titles than they do Wii, and few carry more than a handful of Wii U titles.

Actually, the 3DS is doing better than the DS did within the same period of time. True, that's why Sony is placing all their bets on the PS4. Actually Microsoft has been making a lot of money from the Xbox 360, especially after the Kinect. The Xbox 360 is still selling really well, despite being in end of life. Not to mention that Xbox 360 is the platform that sells the most games. Microsoft is certainly the "winner" of this generation, at least sales-wise. The Wii sold more units, but it had an abysmal attach rate. People bought the console, but not the games. Microsoft achieved good results in both the hardware and the software market.

Uh, what? Europe receives far more attention from Nintendo than NA. I really hope that with Iwata as the CEO of Nintendo of America things start to change. And even then Nintendo still turned a profit, despite the Wii U's disappointing performance. Nintendo is healthy enough in the console market, and that won't change anytime soon.

I have large hands, but they're not that large. And it still doesn't explain or justify the refusal of Sony and Nintendo to offer larger controls. The Xbox controllers are designed in a way that makes them a bit more reasonable in terms of scaling to an array of hand sizes. Whereas the typical Japanese controllers require one to hold the game pad with only the very tips of the fingers and risk the joints jamming up in a way that the Xbox controllers don't require.

People have been predicting Nintendo going under or turning into a 3rd party publisher since the Nintendo 64 days.

Interesting to note, the PS1 did not reach mainstream success until Final Fantasy 7 in 1997 and the PS1 released in the US in 1994, so what game sold the PS1 before FF7?

Wrong person to talk to. I do know that they had a few timed Exclusives such as with the Tomb Raider games but I'm not familiar with the PS1 launch timeline.

You mean besides games like WipEout, Ridge Racer, Rayman, Tekken, Battle Arena Toshinden and Tomb Raider?

Still better than the catastrophe that was the original xbox controller.

My hand would be roughly average size and I never noticed? You must be used to the old-school chunky controllers :P
Nintendo still sells good in Japan, where's mainly due to offering such games as Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter, which are hardly kid's games. (It's still like that in Japan, right?)

It was back in early 2000. I heard as years progressed that eventually America was seeing more of Nintendo than even Japan was.

Not to mention Croc and Crash Bandicoot.

Edit: Ah crap, scrap Croc, that one's from late 1997. But Crash Bandicoot is from 1996.

The controllers are basically the same size, it's just the way that the PS3 controller is designed that makes it so completely worthless. Seriously, compare the sizes and the Xbox controller is barely any larger.

And old school controllers used to be even smaller.

If you've really never noticed, it's unlikely that your hands are truly average sized, unless you're weirdly proportioned.