The wiiU is up YoY and this year, the wiiU is getting the most amount of games compared to the 3ds this year and wiiU's past... On top of that, in the history of Nintendo, Zelda has never missed a console in terms of being specifically made for it. If you exclude ports, both the GC (WW) and the wii (SS) have their own Zeldas but the wiiU does not...
On top of that, while yes, the wiiU hardware is selling terribly compared to its competition, it is still selling lots of software on its high profile games and it has lots of games coming out... While the 3ds on the other hand has hardly any games coming out and is looking to have a successor...
The reason they would want to replace the handheld and not the console is because they would want to keep the handheld momentum going... Their handheld division is their only successful division atm and letting that die in terms of sales before releasing another one would spell disaster for them. The wiiU is up YoY so it is still selling and it will continue to sell its software and there have been games announced for it. The wiiU does not look like its at the end of its console cycle from a games release perspective but the 3ds does hence why I think the NX will be a handheld and not a console
PC Specs: CPU: 7800X3D || GPU: Strix 4090 || RAM: 32GB DDR5 6000 || Main SSD: WD 2TB SN850
