Whenever I read any post explaining the reasons behind Wii U's poor sales, its name constantly keeps popping up as a major reason, due to the fact that many people apparently confused the Wii U with the original Wii, assuming the tablet controller was just an add-on.

But then think back to the Xbox One's reveal. Almost everyone agreed back then that "Xbox One" was a terrible name for the successor to the Xbox 360. People even pointed out that it could easily be confused with the original Xbox, which many also called Xbox 1.

So then why is it that one of the major reasons behind the Wii U's failure is attributed to its name when the Xbox One seems to be doing just fine even with a potentially confusing name? Is it just that Xbox One was marketed better and the Wii U wasn't? In that case its not really the Wii U's name that failed it but rather its marketing.

Also, what should have been the name of the Wii U as the successor to the Wii?

Edit: Didnt read OP properly. My bad.

People "always" judge based on past. In past Xbox and Xbox 360 didnt do well in Japan. But Nintendo did well in Japan. And nobody expected Xbox One to do well in Japan; given their investment in Japan centric games is almost zero. On the contrary Wii U has quite a lot of games for Japanese gamers.

I really like the name Wii U

The real problem with it (at least where i live), is that people confuse it with the original Wii.
Maybe calling it Wii 2 would've been better...

People buying XBO are going to be more informed than people buying Wii U

The main problems of those consoles were not the names, specs and long software droughts for the WiiU and the Kineckt and DRM fiasco for the XBone were. The problem is that most of the XBox fans thought the XBone name was dumb, but they knew the 360 and the XBone were different machines. With the WiiU, there were a ton of people who thought the U was an add-on similar to the Wii Fit. That's the difference.

Wii U Draw tablet, this is what i thought the Wii U was.

The Xbox One was actually marketed properly and didn't look like a peripheral.

The name was never an important issue for Wiiu not selling well. All it was, was an excuse by fans to justify the disappointing sales. Same with Vita. Apple could name their product, iphone 1s and people would still buy it in droves. Sony could name their next home console "Vita" and it would sell well.

It's much harder to admit that most gamers are simply not that interested in old Ninty ips any more. The number of hardcore Ninty fans or people who are actually interest in Ninty ips is much lower than people are willing to admit.

Oh, absolutely. Sales would be worse without the playstation name/brand, but I think it'd still do well.

Edit: Now if they were to name it psZ or psOmega, I think it wouldn't lose many sales. People would be interested in the next ps console and they'd find out what psZ was instead of assuming that it was a peripheral.

I disagree. If you want to argue less informed people may have bought the Wii-U under ideal circumstancess however, its quite true.

As it stands, I'd say it has the most informed consumers, in part from being primarily bought to be one of two machines or more for most core gamers. (Of  which, lets face it, there aren't that many.)