Who exactly was Nintendo's primary target audience with the Wii U?

[Soundwave]

bigtakilla said:

Soundwave said:
"Hardcore" gamers don't really care about Metroid, and Zelda isn't anything all that special to them either.

That's just appealing to the same group of Nintendo fans, most of whom bought the Wii U anyway.

Honestly if it were possible an merging/alliance with Microsoft would be the best way to actually get credibility with modern core gamers, but Nintendo would never agree to it willingly.

No one really wants three consoles and historically its never been supported that well outside of the Wii which again largely rode a controller fad to entice unloyal casuals before they got bored of it and moved on (an audience isn't worth spit if you can't maintain it).

But the question is, are their people who loved the Metroid series who haven't gotten a Wii U yet? I know there are Zelda fans who haven't bought a Wii U, and with both the series you are pretty much showing them that every gen is not guarenteed two major franchises exclusive to a console. 

Essentially you are pissing off around 3 million Metroid fans, and 7 million LoZ fans, that's more than half the entire Wii U userbase (a lot more). It isn't a good move, nor is it smart on any level. 

Nintendo's never given much of a shit about supporting failed products. I'm sorry you couldn't see this coming, but if you look at the Virtual Boy or even the GameCube ... realistically they cut pretty much all/most big internal development on the GameCube after 2004, letting it coast off farmed out projects and moving Zelda to the Wii launch window.

And the GameCube was selling much better than the Wii U was with lower game development costs.

What's happened to the Wii U was entirely predictable.

And not a chance in hell Metroid actually has 3 million fans that would've bought a Wii U. A Metroid game on Wii U would've sold maybe 500-750k tops with minimal/no impact on hardware.