Unexciting software.

I have read the comments, that doesn't change the fact that u gave a non-answer, why even post if ur basically just restating what the OP is asking?

There is never just ONE reason for something doing this poorly. However I think there are ton of very obvious reasons:

-Too late
-Too weak
-Little Support
-Outdated online
-Too Expensive
-Too much competition

^^All of these things contributed to selling worse than the Dreamcast.

It's failing because it is too expensive. It's too expensive because it has a "gimmick" tablet controller that not even Nintendo knows what to do with.

If it launched with Wii Motes (or a Pro controller) and cost $249 at launch, we would not be having this discussion today.

With the discounts / bundles available on the PS4 and XBOne, the Wii U has to sell for $199 to match its value, in my opinion (a $299 Wii U cannot compete with a $349 XBOne and a $399 PS4). At a $199 price point, I think it would have a chance to be everyone's second console, which may let them sell up to 20 million this generation.

My current prediction is 13 million lifetime sales for the Wii U.

This, nintendo was so stupid they did not invest in online one bit with the money they made from the Wii and that come back hurt them.

It is the lack of third party support. It is impossible for one publisher, no matter how good they are, to come out with enough games that appeal to enough people to support an entire platform. Nintendo makes great games, but they aren't for everybody. Third party games help broaden the appeal of the platform, without their support, the potential sales of the platform will be limited.

Do you genuinely believe that the X1 passed the WiiU in sales because "you look cool playing mature and realistic looking games"? Having a good image is important, but i'd say the image its built from having majority of new releases available on it plays a much bigger role in its success than what you put.

Because they;
gave me a gamepad instead of a nunchuck (which made the consol 80$ more expensive than needed).
gave me SuperMarioWorld 3D instead of Mario Galaxy.
havnt given me a zelda on the Wii U at launch.

It is not the name
It is not the Gamepad
It is not the power of the console
It is not the price

The reason it failed is because 1) Nintendo thought people would buy it due to the Wii in the name even though there were no games. (That isn't the name issue, if it had games at launch, a bunch to say the least, people would have bought it)
2) Games. I personally believe that games and marketing is the biggest issue.
They have too many droughts for one. That really sucks. Also, they didn't really start pulling out their big guns till Mario Kart 8 in 2014, which should have been a launch title. I think that they developed the games way later than they should have.
3) Marketing is the other one, which they only recently started to do a lot of. They did it with Mario Kart 8 and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze which was good, before that though, they practically had none. Now they have amiibo commercials, Smash commercials, Splatoon commercials etc.

I'm sure the OP is well written with lots of Good points but I'm not going to read it. We had this thread too many times. I'm just going to say what I have said before. The Wii was a lie and Wii owners got conned.