No point in trying to justify the gamepad when even Nintendo can't justify it. Look at that article about Mario Kart. It doesn't even use the gamepad! Compare it to Mario Kart Wii which used motion control.

Nintendo at this point should just drop the gamepad and sell the Wii U for $199 and hope for a mini comeback. At least try to turn it around like what Sony did with the PS3. Remember their big re-branding in 2009? When they released the PS3 Slim and all that. But what Sony also did was fire a lot of the head guys around there. I think Iwata, Eiji and Miyamoto need to go ASAP if Nintendo wants a chance at a comeback. Miyamoto at least needs to retire that guy is holding Nintendo back big time.

Oh I should also give Nintendo credit on Splatoon. That game looks pretty cool and it's a new IP. Hopefully it's a moderate hit so it becomes a franchise.

So you loved the wii even being a lot weaker than ps3 and x360 and having a "weird" wiiremote as the standard control... 

The Wiimote was awesome and revolutionary. Graphics aren't that important really.

Oh another annoyance. NO ACHIEVEMENTS! I won't lie I am an achievement/trophy person. I have played games extra just to get them (not as much as from 05-12, but still do). Honestly I thought that was a cool innovation from the 360.

What would've been cool are coins. Like instead of an achievement/trophy, you get a coin. A 10 point achievement = 1 yellow coin, a 20 point achievement = a red coin, and a 50 point achievement = a blue coin (just examples). Then you get 1,000 achievements/platinum trophy you get a Power Star. Would be really cool.

a)I did not say they were going blue ocean. I think they wagered that the Nintendo fanbase was a larger chunk of that blue ocean(30-50 million) not the measley 7 or so million that bought the U(not every console sold is from the fanbase).

b)They had powerful hardware during the PS1/2 era and that got them nowhere other than a bunch of losses. At $349(making profit/breaking even) with a standard controller the U would have only been a bit more powerful, but not enough to compete with machines that are taking losses at $400(a year after the U came out). The end result would be the same. Half assed ports that U owners would buy on their X1/PS4's. Ports would sell badly, and we would end up where we are now. This is assuming that the U was X86 based and not Power PC(they would have to sacrifice backwards compatibility).

Retro Studios not being used to full potential. This dev team could possibly bring us a new FPS game that will blow our rocks off, instead we are given Donkey Kong Country: TF which had no online play. It also flopped badly in sales.

This. 

Dont be hater please, stop it.

a) That's the thing. The Wii U doesn't even appeal to Nintendo gamers. Nintendo gamers (mostly) want a Super Mario 64 HD sequel, a Zelda with OOT/TP graphics, etc. etc. It just blows my mind Nintendo finally gets an HD console and instead of giving us something as incredible both graphically and gameplay wise as Galaxy is just mindblowing. Not to mention 3D World doesn't even have online, which was UNACCEPTABLE in 2013. Nintendo wanted a multiplayer Mario and didn't even make it online.... that is surreal. Even if they wanted to focus on local multiplayer online is just an option.

b) The Wii U actually sold for a loss anyway because of the high price of that gamepad controller. If Nintendo went to the power route they'd find profit faster because the price of the CPU/GPU would have went down significantly (they usually go down 40% after the first year). And at least they'd be getting ports, much better than getting nothing. Also the Wii U could still have BC because Wii games shouldn't be too hard to emulate, but even then I'd rather have a super powerful console without BC than what the Wii U is now.

Here is what Nintendo should have done:

- Train for HD programming (there is NO excuse to getting caught off guard by HD programming! None! This is one of the reasons so many Nintendo games came out so late)

- Not name it Wii U

- Give it a Power7 PC based processor with 3GHz speed and 4 cores, and 256KB L2 cache per core. 4GB DDR3 RAM, 1GB GDDR5 825MHz GPU and a 250GB 7,500 RPM hard drive. It'd be a loss for the first year at $349 but eventually profitable and it'd sell more

- No gimmicky controllers, or if they have to give us an updated Wiimote or something

- A couple new IPs, get Retro working on creating the Goldeneye for a new Nintendo generation. Nintendo has released more Mario games on the Wii U than Microsoft has released Halo games period.

- More online focus, make Miiverse an actual social network and not what it is now and quit being so online-phobic

- Be good to third parties. Advertise their games a bit, bundle your console with their games. Look how Sony and Microsoft treat third parties. Also Nintendo could afford to buy a couple exclusives

Nintendo does seem to be in need of expanding their core creative staff beyond the megalomania of Miyamoto- surely the man is a genious, but that should not grant him automatic victory in any internal debate ever held.

I stopped reading comments at the 2nd page due to incessant and tedious complaining about singular points in the opening author's listings - do you people seriously expect someone who is agitated across the line to be absolutely nullified of human feelings? If he/she hadn't felt aware, this statement likely wouldn't have been raised at all. Back to preschool and recap. Rabble... Know that the WiiU is struggling for a reason, even if it isn't so incredibly easy to pick out the exact reason why; discussion will atleast take you further than omitting arguments that take part in your specific way of thinking. Attacking such pre-convictions aggressively will not equate to constructive reasoning or discussion, but rather spawn delusions and lock down a war. I only own a mere 5 games for this system, as opposed to the 30+ I had on the original Wii.

Its 2015 why am paying for online and not able to do cross platform play?