Lets look back at the awful Wii U launch advertisement video

[Mr Khan]

DialgaMarine said:
That ad really wasn't that bad, but there was a huge problem with it. Nintendo spent their entire E3 2012 & 13 marketing how the U was a core console for core gamers, and then ads like this come and show off nothing but casual games and gimmicks. I got an idea. How about instead of showing me the gamepad being using as a karaoke teleprompter while people pretend they can sing, you actually demonstrate how the gamepad can be used as a big game changer in games that actually matter... Like I don't know... AC, Batman, Darksiders, or even CoD? Ads like this show the U's biggest problem. It completely lacks identity. Nothing about it screams, hey go get rid of your old console and buy this! Come on Nintendo. What are you doing?

This i have to agree with.

Lack of identity is what hamstrung the Wii U right out of the gate. If Nintendo wanted to go whole-hog on a red ocean console, they should have. If they wanted to make a proper Wii successor, they should have. This caters to nobody.

It's like the GameCube in a way. In both cases it was clear they wanted to make a console to compete with Sony (and/or Microsoft in the latter case) on their own terms, but old man Yokoi's design philosophy is so embedded in the brains of Nintendo engineers that they just can't bring themselves to make a parallel-competitive console.