If consoles sales are all about the software, then what's the point Wii U's second screen?

[Gamerace]

The whole point of a new console is to create a new level of gameplay not possible on the preceeding technology.
Historically this was always based on power alone (and that was enough to make huge leaps in gameplay) Nintendo took a different path with Wii. It wasn't really more powerful than the preceeding gen (about on par with Xbox) but had three distinquishing features - motion controls, online and avatars (Miis). They got mimiced on avatars quickly and quickly lost ground (and abandoned ship) on online and eventually motion controls were mimiced too, leaving Wii with no advantage over competing systems.

Along came WiiU. But again, it's not really any more powerful than the preceeding gen. So it needs something other than power to create NEW gameplay experiences. Problem is, the second screen fails at that. Except for a very few asymetrical minigames and arguably ZombieU it's purely an unneeded novelty. WiiU games are basically identical to Wii or PS360 games that preceeded it. This extends to all upcoming games as well. It all feels very last gen, like we're being asked to buy another console for no other reason than to give away our money to Nintendo. Aside from NintendoLand and Game & Wario all Nintendo WiiU games could/should have been Wii games. All that HD power has not changed anything about how the games are played. This is a huge problem. In fact, aside from motion/Miis/online all of Nintendo games are basically unchanged since Gamecube gameplay wise.

The second screen was intended to change that but has failed even in Nintendo's own games which is the worse offense.