A lot of people have Said one of the biggest dowfalls of WiiU was the name and that people think it's just a tablet add-on for Wii.

So out of curiosity how often do you hear someone complain about buying a WiiU gamepad (standalone) but couldn't use it on Wii and the new game they bought (for WiiU) don't run on Wii? Do you think or can prove it is significantly more than on Sony/Ms platforms (like putting ps4 disk on ps3 or vice-versa??? When I was a kid I put ps1 cd on Saturn and PC as well to see error messages.

I don't think the problem is as big as we assume.

Well... The thing is... Buying the gamepad by itself is very hard to do unless u are searching on ebay or Craigslist or something so of course, no one would complain like that cause its not easy to buy the gamepad alone at retail. Specially during launch

The name is a confusion cause people thought it was an accessory to the wii before they even thought about buying it and they probably thought it wasn't HD or anything. And not to mention, saying the words wiiU to a casual is very confusing cause it doesn't really click on them that it is a successor to the wii cause it doesn't have anything to state that other than the U which is veryyyyy confusing. I had to explain it several people that were wondering what the wiiU was and how would it not work with the wii. None of them even realized it was a successor back then or it was a "new console" and not just a tablet for the wii

Where as with ps3 vs ps4, in the english language, its easy to tell that ps4 is not the samething as the ps3 cause 4 comes after 3

I know that game.co.uk put WiiU in the Wii section (different than ps/xbox), some stores do it in physical shelves and several clerks are obnoxious. But I think the impact is small and the confusion only worsen other issues instead of being a real issue itself.

I've seen it a few times but those are most likely due to them subconsciously acting the way that the internet says they should about the device.

After seeing the Picture I understood the end of your joke.

At others, how would the name generate confusion for WiiU but wasn't a problem on snes/nes (that many wouldn't know standed for super) or master system/Mega Drive or genesis? Or how would they know if x360 or ps3 was better Xbox or ps2 or x1 versus ps4? Have they just bought the one with the bigger number thinking it was better? This gave me an Idea for a new thread.

In real life I have never seen someone complain about that and most of my friends are aware that a Wii U exists though they usually don't care much as their more into PlayStation and Xbox. Anyways if the "New" 3DS doesn't mange to confuse consumers then we can surely say that the Wii U's name is not one of the reasons why it is selling below expectations.

This. OP got it backwards. If it was like he described the sales would be higher and not lower.

People simply didn't buy Wii U because they thought it would just be an addon.

Yes, the name adds to the confusion but only because "Wii" is not Nintendo's brand name. Sony has "Playstation" so 1,2,3 and 4 obviously will be different. Xbox One's name is just as bad as Wii U, but Xbox is the brand name. Nintendo doesn't have one. If it was Wii this whole time, they could have Wii U, Wii M, Wii P... Wii whatever and it wouldn't be as confusing because practically everyone would know it is their brand console. (also the design for them would be different)

All gameshops here have a note saying "Wii U games do not work on Wii".

So I assume the problem is pretty big.

I literally don't see where you are going with this. Neither of us claimed that this problem would be the only or even the main reason why Wii U fails. In fact I don't see anyone in this thread claiming something like that.

Or I'm missing the joke and this was supposed to be a stereotypical Nintendo hater post.

Now I'm confused. I better not buy a Wii U right now.