To me, it was the most unappealing major home console release of all time. I didn't even think about buying one. It's fine and dandy and all that. In a vaccum. None among the big 3 have ever released a truly bad system, and the Wii-U was not bad by any any means. Just not close at all to what MS and Sony were offering. I like Nintendo more than MS. No doubt. But I'll take an XBO and a fart into my face over a Wii-U any day.

The sin wasn't on third parties, they will go wherever the money is. The sin is on Nintendo. They launched an over priced, out dated console into the market without a first party killer app so no one bought the system. 3rd parties won't jump into a system with a low installed base.

I mean

Bad marketing. Not many outside of this type of crowd knew what it was. My dad still thinks it's a Wii add-on.

Lack of games. Yeah, it got Splatoon, Mario Kart 8, some side scrolling Mario titles, and BotW (for what it was worth at that point). But that was really about all there was to write home about, both from 1st- and 3rd-parties.

Tablet controller... Yeah...

Power/Price... It just wasn't worth it.


Wii U was a perfect storm of bad decisions wrought on by Nintendo's hubris.

Software. The answer is almost always the software.

The name, also known as marketing, did not help.

Not sure why it has a gender now... but it had a hard start.
Nintendo messed up the design, because of bad design choices.

Spending 180$ out of 300$ on a tablet controller, leaves you with 120$ for the actual hardware.
It resulted in a really poor price vs performance (value) for the device.
It was too weak, and released too late, and too close to the newer consoles.

Nintendo is out of cycle with generations (vs the other two), and the Wii U was just a perfect storm of everything going wrong, and bad timeing.
Then even nintendos 1st party wasnt as good as normal (basically "she wasnt even trying her best").

Nintendo also realised at some point there was no saveing it, and then just choose to abandon it.
Add onto the fact that basically everything the Wii U had that was good, has been ported to the Switch.... yeah.

All the above for $299.99 please. If it was simply a more powerful Wii, relying on the same Wiimotes, it would have sold much better.

But at this point, who cares. Now it could be argued the interesting ideas Wii U had helped make the Switch a great success.

We are seeing virtually the same software thrive on Switch.

If those same games were downgraded for the original Wii, they would have succeeded there as well.

Umm excuse me good fellow have you not played Xenoblade Chronicles X??? Super Mario 3D World?? Her virtual console library?? That was the best she could offer and damnit I enjoyed every minute of it. The Wii U walked so the Switch could run. She deserves some respect!

I'm patiently waiting for Nintendo to port XCX, 3D World and Wind Waker HD to the Switch btw idk why in the hell they haven't done it yet....

And the PSP would have soundly beaten the DS.

Having most WiiU games ported over to the Switch just makes the WiiU even a more pointless system from a games perspective... Although as a collector I am enjoying collecting the WiiU as it has a tiny games library and it's cheap to collect for.

The games were great, there just wasn't enough of them often enough, the Switch seems to have solved that issue.

A Combination of the following:

- Big, cheap feeling awkward clunky controller that allowed for *sort of portable* gaming but like, not really? Not much of a point..

- Lack of compelling games (hell not just 2nd/3rd party but even from Nintendo!)

- Hurdles of the Miiverse crap to jump through just to get to your games

- Poor marketing (resembled more of a Wii add-on than a brand new console - ran with the Wii branding while many of its games leaned more "hardcore" GameCube style. Iwata even had to tweet a pic of him holding the Wii U informing the public that "yes, this IS in fact a separate console."

- Lack of innovative games that had depth or staying power like Wii Play/Fit/Sports. Nintendoland doesn't really count as it was more a compilation of mini games based on existing Nintendo properties. 

My two cents.

I almost see Wii U as a clunky Switch prototype that was clinging to the Wii branding without having much of the spirit of the Wii.