Reggie explains why the WiiU underperformed.

[Dunban67]

Nintendo was trying desperately to minimize/ eliminate losses they had recently taken for the first time in several dozen years - They were hoping the Wii u would take off early and they could convince 3 red parties to support it until they could 1 ) figure out how to make Hd games ( they acknowledged struggling with this) and long enough to keep expenses down - but sales dropped quickly after Nintendo started announcing major delays in their " launch window " games - Third parties quickly realized that Nintendo was barely supporting their own console nor were they following through on using the game pad in ways they had previously promised like asymmetric game play - If it was not for Ubisoft support the 1st year +/- it would have been an even bigger disaster early on - I was happy but surprised Ubisoft supported the Wii u as long as they did -
Some people will take a shot at Ubi for delaying Rayman but those same people will say " of course Nintendo should delay/ release Zelda U for the NX.... They are a business afterall.... Yada ya da ya da
And I guarantee Nintendo had the chance to keep Rayman an exclusive and keep the earlier release date had they been willing to share some of the risk w Ubisoft - that is how it works oftentimes but Nintendo chose not to for whatever reason
At any point in time Nintendo could have done more for the Wii u but once it lost momentum after the initial game delays they pretty much decided to eliminate as much risk as possible on the Wii u by cutting expenses and doing the bare min to get by till they could start talking about the NX-
That is what is most disappointing to me as a launch day purchaser of the wiiu - I kept expecting them to defend their console, their brand, their market share by making the Wii u sales/ ecosystem at least respectable but they pulled back very early on the Wii u and pretty much went down w out a fight, just a whimper - all the 3 rd parties that pulled support and or declined support early on made the right business decisions - no one can objectively say otherwise - just ask Ubisoft who I am sure wish they had pulled support much sooner
Nintendo is going to have to be the major risk taker with the NX if they want it to have a chance - I don t think they Intend to do much w 3 rd parties re the NX and I think most consumers will take a " wait and see" approach before committing ( unless it is very very inexpensive and has lots of quality games ready day 1 or very close)