This isn't really true.

N64 starts with great 3rd Party Support in spite of horrible cartdrigde situation. Eventually dies down as Playstation is the clear winner of the gen and both systems have vastly different architecture and storage mediums

Gamecube. Still has good support (receievces most Ubisoft/EA/Activision games) in spite of limitations of mini-disc & arriving a year after PS2 but most important titles of the generation are Playstation is exclusive (i.e they're not availble on Xbox Either- GTA (for most of the generation) Tekken, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear Solid). All the meanwhile the Xbox starts recieving it own consoles exclusives thanks to its similarity to PC developement & this led to it getting GTA (half life, elderscrolls, doom etc).

Wii- Literally a gamecube repackaged.

Wii U- Literally a last gen system arriving at the end of the generation, has nothing to offer PS3/360 owners who 3rd parties sold all their games to, branded with the Wii brand which is not only was dying in the casual space but also considered poison in the "core" gamer space. Did I mention that it wouldn't be able to run any game released just 2 years from its launch without a seperate team dedicated to porting to its hardware?

Nintendo 1st party content is far bigger seller than either sony or microsofts. If Ninetndo released a console that ticked all boxes and wasn't marketed as a gimmick, they would obviously perform better than what we saw with Wii U. It would of course require them to put their best foot forward software wise and face the inevitable upwill battle to gain traction on franchises which have previously been home on Xbox/PS2, but Xbox 360 went through that exact same uphill battle. 

As others have said, how things have worked out has been great in the end. Without the Wii U we might not have received the Switch...

But its also possible that we would have received something better.

Nintendo (2012) console outsells the Wii U, goes toe to toe with Xbox One but still struggles to pass the 40m mark.
In 2017, Nintendo announce they're making a portable version of said console.
Hybrid console on par with Xbox One launches in 2019.
Essentially you have the Switch but far more powerful and much better 3rd Party support. Just like the PS4/Xbox One it continues to recieve heavy AAA 3rd party support until game developement fully shifts next gen (around 2022), but then it just recieves current switch level support (indie games, japanese games and the occasional AAA port)

In my opinion, the Wii U's biggest issue was the gamepad. It was far too costly and resulted in a console that couldn't get price cuts despite desperately needing them. While the Wii U has some great games, I feel like Nintendo had internally realized their failure and focused much of their efforts on the Switch long before the Wii U had run its course. As a result, the Switch ended up having far more resources put into it than the Wii U did.

Wii U should’ve shipped minus that bogus touchscreen controller and just been an hd wii (or Wii 2) instead of what we got. The problem with the U was that Nintendo tried to come up with a new gimmick when they didn’t really have anything. I’m worried they’re gonna make the same mistake when they get around to the switch’s successor but hopefully they’ve learned their lesson.

The Switch is my second favorite system of all time and it could end up being the first depending on how the next few years go.  Having said that, I would prefer an alternate reality where the Switch may never have existed.  Nintendo should have made a "Super Wii" instead of the Wii U.  They should have doubled down on the direction they were heading with the Wii.

Basically this means more motion controls and fitness games.  It means more emphasis on the Virtual Console and smaller digital only games.  It means more focus on old school 2D games.  They ditch the gamepad and bundle in motion+ controls instead.  Launch price would be $250.  Modifications to the Wii U game library would look like this:

New Games
Super Wii Sports Resort (bundled at launch), Super Wii Fit, Super Excitetruck, Arms, Ring Fit Adventure (these last 2 would be released a generation earlier)

Games to Keep
Anything that uses motion controls, is 2D or embraces the old school feel:
Mario Kart 8, Smash Bros. 4, DK Tropical Freeze, NSMB (U) (this should be more polished though), Mario Maker, BotW, Hyrule Warriors, etc....

Games that Would Never Have Been Made
3D games that fit the N64 & Gamecube philosophy: Super Mario 3D Land, Captain Toad, Nintendo Land, Pikmin 3, etc....

Virtual Console/eShop
Nintendo keeps expanding this.  They add more games to the Virtual Console (NES, SNES, N64, etc...), and they start doing Indie Directs a generation earlier.  They also release a few games like Snipperclips and Boxboy as digital only and promote them.

This is the direction that Nintendo should have taken.  And the fact is that if they had kept in this direction, they would have ended up with a ton more third party games on the Super Wii as well.  Would they have gotten AAA games like GTA5?  No.  But all the third party devs that came out for the Wii would have come back for the Super Wii.  Just Dance would have sold better.  Other games would have gotten more complex.  Yesterday's Boom Blox could have evolved into a River City Ransom type game with motion controls.  

The thing about the Super Wii is that it could have been the modern Super NES.  I love the NES, but most people like the Super NES better, because it took the best NES games and made them even better: longer, more complex, better graphics and more polish.  Most people prefer Link to the Past and Super Metroid to their predecessors, not realizing how vital the NES versions were to making these games happen.  Well, that was also the potential of a Super Wii, complex and more polished motion control games like we had never seen before.

As much as I love the Switch, I think a Super Wii would have been better for gaming.  Gaming, as a whole, is getting stale.  Motion controls brought the promise of a whole new type of game, and a whole new customer base that would fund these new types of games.  That is exactly what gaming needed (and still needs).  However the Wii U sabotaged this new customer base and motion control games.  I long for what could have been.

Agreed, I find it funny people still try to put the Wii U's failure down to some ridiculous idea that nobody could tell if it was a new system or an add-on to the Wii. Really? A $350 add-on that includes brand new hardware? I don't think so.

The Wii U's problem was partially that the Wii's popularity was heavily based on non-gamers who had picked up tens of millions of Wii's in the Wii frenzy from 2007 to 2009. Being non-gamers, they lost interest after a couple years, or just continued to play the handful of games they liked playing on the Wii. It wasn't an audience that was easily brought over to a new system, because it isn't a gaming audience and the fact that the Wii got these people in the first place is pretty incredible and just shows how much of a phenomenon the Wii was to the general non-gaming market.

The Wii U's other problem was that they didn't have a Wii Sports-like game to continue the Wii revolution on the Wii U. Wii Sports is literally what sold tens of millions of Wii's to non-gamers. Wii U had nothing with that sort of word of mouth viral popularity. And it probably wasn't possibly to repeat that because Wii Sports had the novelty of motion control being brand new, while playing on a tablet or having a second screen was not some amazing new concept.

Finally the Wii U's gamepad was just not an interesting feature and Nintendo built the entire viability of the Wii U around it. It created an awkward forced asymmetric play style for all multiplayer games, and for single player games resulted in having to play with an awkward huge ass controller. The upshot that you could play while someone else is using the TV did not make up for those two things. Basically the tablet was too expensive and not necessary to have 4 of, so you only can use one on a system. Whole thing was just poorly thought out and they focused on coming up with a new gimmick instead of coming up with a good way to play games.

I somewhat agree with people who say the Wii U was a necessary failure because it truly was the halfway point between the Wii and the Switch, and the Switch probably wasn't viable in 2012 (it would have been too low powered compared to other systems hitting the market so instead of offering console experiences on the go it would've felt more like just the latest handheld generation, like maybe it would have been on the level of Wii graphics but in HD). So yeah if Nintendo wouldn't have come up with the concept of the Switch without making that halfway step of the Wii U and failing and realizing they needed to go all the way then it was a necessary failed step.

But I'm not sure if that is even the case - if that failure was needed to guide Nintendo to the Switch. If not, I would say a straight generational upgrade to the Wii is what the Wii U should have been, though now that I think about it, given what I said above about it being very hard to bring those non-gamers to a new system, I'm not sure that a straight upgrade to the Wii would have succeeded either. Although I guess if Nintendo had made it nearly as powerful as the PS4 and One it would have probably gotten decent 3rd party support and so that plus motion control games may have resulted in at least decent sales, maybe XboxOne level sales.

Yeah so after thinking about it I'm gonna say the Wii U failure is fine because who knows how successful a straight generational upgrade to the Wii would have been and Wii U did lead to Switch and now we are all happy with Nintendo and its future possibilities.

I agree with a few of your ideas.

Tablet control should have been an accessory and perhaps smaller.

A more powerful GPU would have been a good idea. Many of the 3rd party games were at par with 7th gen consoles, just enough power to push Wii U visuals to 1080p would have been great. However, some games may have just pushed graphics and stuck with 720p.

Yeah, maybe like the Wiimotes which many millions already had. The controls that actually made Nintendo unique in the console arena.

I think $249 would have been better for competitive reasons. The Wii U launched for $299-349 primarily due to the tablet controller.

The Wii U didn't have a notable game to launch with, but X1 and PS4 launch titles weren't amazing either. Switch relied on a cross gen game and so will the next Xbox.

The WiiU is a Hybrid console, it can be played off-screen remotely independent of a television.

I think having a game like Breath of the Wild at the start of the console cycle rather than near the end and then having it ported to Switch would have helped significantly I think.

Ignoring the fact that hindsight makes the Wii U look like a necessary step towards the Switch...

Nintendo could have focused on either trying to make their 2012 console as popular as possible or simply remaining profitable, as with the GameCube. And if they wanted to at least brek even on consoles, that means removing the GamePad. A 2013 estimate from CNN suggests that about a third of the console's price came from just the GamePad. Nintendo could likely have released a "Super Wii" or "Wii HD" around the same time with similar hardware for up to $100 less.

The only question is, could Nintendo have convinced at least 20 million people to buy Super Wiis?

I'm thinking the answer is yes. Most of the best-selling games on the Wii U could have been made without the GamePad, and many already natively support the Wiimote. Games like Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros, Super Mario 3D World, and New Super Mario Bros U would basically be unchanged.

The main exceptions to this, best-selling Wii U games that benefit greatly from a GamePad or at least a traditional controller, generally came out after the Wii U had already failed (Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, and Breath of the Wild). These games would either have to be changed to be released on the Super Wii or be delayed to the Switch.

Yeah I'm gonna go with what several have already said and basically release the Wii U as the "Wii 2" with Wiimotes instead of the Gamepad and a $250 price point.