I made an account to respond to this. To begin, I'm a long time Nintendo fan, and have followed the Wii U off and on during its development stages and up to today. I'd like to think I've been level-headed in assessing the Wii U (among other things), but then again I can't imagine anyone thinking they aren't level headed.
TL;W[on't]R: "When a system 'fails,' it's more about who is not buying the system and why, rather than who is buying." The Wii U's major problems were the perception that it was a failed system that persisted from before its release to today, and the lack of effort to change this perception early enough in the console's life. Also, it's not really the fan's fault for the Wii U's lack of success because, despite their support, "the company is not looking at under 11 million sales in 3 years and saying, 'Wow, our fans are really happy with this system. Let's release more like it!'"
There are many reasons why the Wii U "failed"; some are more important than other, but they all interact with each other to create the situation Nintendo's console is currently in. The most obvious reason is hardware -- I didn't watch the video you posted, but I have seen a number of articles that all boil down to the same thing: The Wii U has a weak processor, tiny hard drive, bad WiFi connection, the lack of Western-styled games, a name too similar to its predecessor, the gamepad is too gimmicky, et cetera (for some reason, this site keeps changing the abbreviation to etch). These are all true (except the last, which is an opinion, albeit a popular one among non-Wii U gamers). Another related issue is the lack of third party support for the system. Even when EA and Ubisoft supported the system, the games coming out for it were mostly the same as those coming out on the 360 and PS3 -- systems which were already owned by the people who are interested in those games. This in itself isn't enough to damn the console, though -- the PS4 and Xbox One got some early moment in with games that were also released for their predecessors. However, what they had that the Wii U lacked was a perceptible improvement to the graphics, load times, fps, et cetera. The only "major" improvement in the Wii U versions was the fact that the gamepad would be integrated, whether as a second screen or for off-screen play. Frankly, this wasn't enough to justify spending $350 to play the games that were also releasing on systems they already owned.
I don't believe that the fans who bought the system are at fault for the Wii J's "failure." Such a conjecture doesn't entirely make sense -- the Wii U was created with little fan input, and couldn't be changed too drastically once it was released, as doing such would turn it into a new console (though I will concede they could have at least given newer models a bigger hard drive, and possibly a better WiFi adapter). What really damaged Nintendo was the perception that the Wii U was a failure before its release, coupled with Nintendo's lack of action to change those perceptions early in the Wii U's life. As I stated above, I've seen many articles that talk about what a failure the Wii U is, most of which cite its hardware as a major part of the problem. Many of these articles were written and published online before the Wii U was released. They correctly pointed out that the Wii U would feel like a 7th gen console. As I also stated above, many of the early games for the system were either the same games with the same graphics as those on the 360 and PS3, while others had comparable video quality to the 7th gen systems. Although Nintendo's games look fabulous on the system (for the most part), not every developer wants to use such cartoon graphics, especially when they've seen success with making games that look at least marginally closer to reality.
Nintendo could have possibly changed the perception of its system by releasing a couple of slam-dunk games early on in its console's life, but there were simply too few over too long of a time. Far too long to gain the momentum it needed to attract more third party companies. The Wii U just wasn't what developers and gamers imagined a next-gen console to look or perform like, and so people turned to the hope that Microsoft and Sony would soon deliver something closer to what they imagined. Again, I'd like to reiterate that I believe Nintendo could have seen much greater success by changing this perception -- by making people see that this console could perform brilliantly with the right developers behind it. However, their strategy at the time was to state how innovative it was, and to let people see for themselves how great the console could be. The problem with that attitude is that the only people who are going to see that are the people who have already purchased the console, and perhaps their friends. (Nintendo was also fond of stating that the Wii U was innovative, without demonstrating how it was innovative. I think many of us are still scratching our heads trying to see what's so innovative about a second screen. They essentially made a living-room DS)
This is getting longer than I anticipated, so I'll try to wrap things up: Nintendo didn't do enough early in the Wii U's life to gain the momentum to attract more gamers and third party developers, they billed their system as the successor to the 360 and PS3 rather than an alternative to the more mainstream platforms, they released hardware that was much too weak at too high of a cost, and they waited too long to release great games for the console.
Nintendo fans did not kill the Wii U. The Wii U's hardware was already set in stone by the time we adopted the system. Rather, we're the only reason Nintendo was able to return to profitability after several years of losing money. The only thing we can do is hope that the NX is either something truly innovative (in a popular way) or something truly powerful. Despite the perception that we Wii U fans are all mindless and can't see the faults with the system, many of us have been critical (I, myself, have written of my disappointments with the Wii U alongside my favorite things about it in the surveys for Club Nintendo). Also, Nintendo is well aware that the system isn't doing well -- the company is not looking at under 11 million sales in 3 years and saying, "Wow, our fans are really happy with this system. Let's release more like it!" And as I said before, no matter how little or how much support we give the Wii U, the biggest obstacles presented by its hardware can't be fixed without changing the system entirely. When a system "fails," it's more about who is not buying the system and why, rather than who is buying.
*Some people may be annoyed with the way I put quotation marks around fail and failure. This is because the terms are commonly used absolutely, but the Wii U wasn't an absolute failure. Yes, it lost Nintendo a bunch of money, and they are probably only back to profitability thanks to the success of the 3DS and downsizing their operations budget; Yes, the Wii U is the worst-selling Nintendo console of all time, and among the worst-selling mainstream consoles of all time. In these metrics, the Wii U is undoubtedly a failure. However, it does have some successes. While the gamepad is not very popular among people who don't own a Wii U, since its release there have been a number of 'second screen' apps for phones and tablets. In that way, it has been moderately influential (though to be honest, I don't see the draw to those apps -- I liked the gamepad for its ability to play games off screen, not for is second-screen capabilities). More importantly, however, some really stellar games have released on the system, which have lead to fond memories among its fans. That might sound wishy-washy, but considering the reason for individuals to buy these consoles is to have such experiences and create such memories, it still stands as a valid measure of success. Some great games came out for it, and they got to the people who would most enjoy them.
However, the most damaging failure of the Wii U was the problem I brought up above: not only has the Wii U suffered a perception problem, but now Nintendo is no longer perceived as a company who can deliver quality hardware, and as a company that talks about innovation rather than actually innovating. This will be the biggest problem Nintendo will have to face in the future. The problem isn't in its focus on being different, per se; but they have to be different in a way that will keep them in a financially stable position (such as was the case when they catered the Wii to people who weren't dedicated gamers).
