I could easily predict Wii would be a success. I find it innovative and just pure and simple fun in a way no other videogame console could be at the time. And, extremely attractive for "casual gamers" or non-hard core, traditional gamers. Nintendo did manage to attract a very new market of (potential) gamers. I know literally tens of people who just didn't play videogames or owned consoles until they used the Wii once and decided to get theirs, and I think this happened to a large part of current Wii market.

I think that to a large part of its market - not all, of course -, the iPad was similar to (even though I don't consider this an exact parallel) the Wii: a new way to access content much more immediate and effective (to them, of course).

Personally, while I got into the Wii concept quite immediately and bought it and still happily use it, I could not get into the iPod idea.
I've used it for few days, I loved the first 20 minutes, I liked if for a day, then I started to find it progressively less and less interesting, to the point I gave it back to the friend who lent it to me without wanting to buy one; now I would just not know what to do with one, other than look at how sleek it looks, and I'm much happier in using a netbook whenever I need something smaller than a laptop (travelling, living room, kitchen, beach, or whatever).