Wow this seems to be "beat Nintendo to a pulp" day!
Anyway from the article it seems that the OS and networking wasn't finished before launch. They kinda rushed it to get the Wii U out on the market it seems.
I have an interesting article here about the Gamecube. It's about the story behind it. You can see in there that Nintendo wanted to launch the N64 and the Gamecube before competition but never succeded in doing so.
Maybe they wanted to have that advantage this time around. Anyway it seems it didn't pay off.
I'll leave the article here if anyone wants to read! Beware though... It's a really fucking long article: http://www.dromble.com/2014/01/07/dolphin-tale-story-of-gamecube/
"I've Underestimated the Horse Power from Mario Kart 8, I'll Never Doubt the WiiU's Engine Again"
