Ok, I have to ask

[Gamerace]

As Soleron said.

I'll add that for the novelity of the gamepad - the WiiU's hook - it's two years too late (if not more). There is absolutely nothing novel about a touchscreen now that we all own multiple such devices. Same for HD. Nothing exciting about an HD console in 2012. In both cases, it's merely meeting a bare minimum expectation for any new electronic device.

Also to maintain the momentum Wii had, it was far too late. WiiU needed to be out in 2010 or 2011 at the absolute latest, or Nintendo needed to do a whole lot better at supporting Wii's momentum in the meantime.

For games library, it appears, despite the dearth of quality Wii games (outside Zelda:SS and Xenoblade) over the last two years than Nintendo still has nothing ready for WiiU (and NSMBU probably took a few months to do) and there's are ZERO next-gen games (what anyone would consider next-gen anyway) on WiiU and there won't be until PS4/720 come out so in this regard, too early. Although in my mind this is an non-issue because no game on WiiU will truly be consider next-gen because any WiiU game can (and almost definitely will) be played on last gen systems (PS360) outside of Nintendo titles of course.

Regardless of any of this I don't feel that these are WiiU's core problem.

The dependance on the gamepad as WiiU's main feature is the primary fault. It appeals to noone neither casual nor core. The system itself is too underpowered to compete with PS4/720 and Nintendo has long dropped their focus on their casual Wii/DS crowd and winning them back from iOS/Android now will be impossible to do with that overly complicated gamepad, expensive games and (comparitively) non-existant game library.

The only way the WiiU concept would fly is if it was full-on tablet (Android) device that also allowed you to play your favorite Nintendo titles both at home on TV and the go on the gamepad.