Theory: Wii U is part of the fusion concept and will be around longer than we think.

[torok]

No, it's not. Wii U isn't a success, it's as far from it as Nintendo ever got, except by the Virtual Boy. Creating a new "Fusion" platform and using as basis a troubled consoles that has a lot of bad marketing and word of mouth around it is plainly stupid. They are better of starting with a new one. Just think about it. The Wii was basically a GC. Nintendo could create a "GC Mote" and make a Wii with it. But they would base their new concept on an old console that nobody bought.

Once a product get a bad impression from the public, changing it becomes an uphill battle, like PS3. You only fight one of those when you don't have another option, because it's hard, costly, and still won't be anywhere as good as starting a new one with the right approach (compare PS4 and PS3).

The X1 created a bad impression and it was enough to implode the market share of the previous gen. Even with the 180s, price cuts, even being cheaper in the US than the PS4, it still isn't catching up. It only managed to win in Nov/Dec when a PS4 was US$400 with one game and the X1 retailed for US$299/349 with 2 games and a US$50 voucher. The Vita got a bad impression of having no games, being expensive and having expensive memory cards. Even if some of these things are fixed, the console isn't improving. People like success, they don't want the failures.

I think the Wii U amassed a bad consumer reaction. It doesn't sell, it doesn't have 3rd party games, it's weak, the controller isn't good and so on. That's what the consumer see. Putting a new console and advertising it WITH the U will make the new one looks like the companion of a failure. And that's another failure. Despite that, associating something new with a console that's relatively old will remove the consumer feeling that it is something fresh.

To conclude, changing a bad image is hard and even in the best cases it doesn't end that good. The new Nintendo handheld console, Fusion or not, deserves a clean start and can't be associated with a product that simply didn't worked.

PS.: When I talk "new console", I mean handheld. People thinking that NX is a home console are crazy. Nintendo won't Dreamcast themselves. NX will be a handheld for 2016, being consistent with the general replacement time for Ninty's handhelds. Or it will be the start of the Fusion concept (I'm skeptical about this one).