Some say the Wii U should have released earlier to compete power wise with the PS3/360.  When it released in 2012, it was too late.  Othere say the Wii U launched too early and it should have released later to compete with the PS4/Xbox One.  It looked dated when it came out already and lacked compelling software.

So which is it?  Too early?  Too late?

Discuss.

I think the real question is that they should have made it stronger and released it at the same time. The problem is not its release date but the amount of horsepower it has.

They should've released it later, so they could have more games during launch-window, and they could either have a tiny bit more powerful hardware or released at a lower price point. This is Captain Hindsight speaking though.

2006.

Should have released later with the line up it has now, SSB,MK8 then zelda and star fox in its first year.

Never. Either earlier w/o the gamepad or later w/ it @ PS4 power level.

Having Miiverse and the OS in its current state at launch would have done wonders. They should have optimized that OS to only use 256MB of RAM so that devs could have 1.75GB to work with from launch. Perhaps then we'd have more ports at the quality of Most Wanted U. Launching with Smash or Kart + WWHD would have really helped. Aside from that I don't think there's nothing else they could have done. If it launched earlier it would be too expensive. If it launched later, lol, no. The timing was right but the advertising, hardware, price and software was just bad.

Late 2011. With Skyward Sword in HD, Mario Kart 7 HD, and Wii Fit U as key launch titles.

2011 with cross-gen Skyward Sword.

This.