Wii U is actually shaping up to be quite a good core gaming machine. The fact that it's late really works against it. It needs positive word of mouth, and I think it's still not there. I've never know people to be so negative or apathetic towards a console.
Despite good games, I still think it will end up like the GameCube, if even it can catch up to it. The reason is that it still doesn't have a killer app, a "je ne sais quois" that will make it sell better than GameCube did. GC also had Nintendo 1st party games, and 3rd party, it wasn't really weak compared to competitors, and it was cheap, but it still sold only ~21 million. And that was at a time when Japan was more into home consoles. The chips are stacked a bit high against Wii U.
