Why did the WiiU fail?

[Soundwave]

Psintendo said:

Soundwave said:

Animal Crossing, Zelda, Pokemon weren't even one of the top 12 selling Wii games. 

Wii Sports, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Sports Resort, New Super Mario Bros, Wii Play, Wii Fit, Wii Fit Plus are the best selling Wii games. Mario & Sonic Olympics sold the same as Twilight Princess basically on the Wii and more than Animal Crossing, lol. 

When the casual/mini-game fad bubble burst .... Wii U/Wii 2/Wii HD/Wii Super Duper was screwed no matter what. 

One thing that gets overlooked too is Nintendo utterly failed after Wii Fit to create another casual hit break through that was genuinely new. Wii Music underperformed big time, Vitality Sensor never came out, Nintendogs + Cats sold a tiny fraction of Nintendogs ... the warning signs were all over the map that Nintendo had no control/no insight into the own audience they had birthed. 

A fad-based console trend was always going to have an ugly downside. I mean yes, Nintendo made a bunch of dumb errors on top of that, but the central problem was always going to be a huge problem even if Wii U had say a better 1st year lineup or better TV commercials. 

So you think that the name was the main reason for the failure.

Although the wii brand was losing its ground, I still think the U part of the name was also a big part of the problem as a wii2/wiitoo/wiitwo would have been much more easily marketed and at least would have been seen as a new console. The brand could maybe have been saved and at least it would not have been as big failure as it now was. It might have most likely underperformed when compared to Wii, but it would easily have been a lot better.

Those of you who think that the biggest reason for the failure was software droughts or lack of huge 3rd party games are thinking the whole thing from a gamer perspective. The poor name and bad marketing also caused 3rd parties to withdraw their support (which was decent at the start) and that really happend after the Wii U sales plummeted down.

No I think continuing the Wii brand was entirely the wrong move. Not just the name, the entire concept of the brand ... basically using casual mini-games to sell a platform + some Mario thrown in. 

And yes Wii U did adhere to that formula ... look at it's release list

Nintendo Land, NSMBU, Mario & Sonic Olympics Sochi, Game & Wario, Wii Fit U, Wii Party U, Wii Sports Club, Sing Party, Just Dance ... were all available in year 1 and these are actually sequels to the biggest selling Wii games. Go and actually look at the best selling Wii software .... it's not Zelda or Metroid or Xenoblade or even Animal Crossing. 

Once the mini-game fad burst ... Wii 2/Wii U/Wii Willy Nilly ... they could've called it whatever they wanted. Once people got sick of the whole "shake the controller around like a goof for 2 minutes and play with grandma! Isn't this so much fun!" thing got old and formulaic, Nintendo was fucked with the entire Wii concept no matter what. 

They could've called it Wii 2 or whatever, it wouldn't hav made a difference. 

Thankfully for Switch, they realized this and 1,2 Switch is only a support title and not something that they are making as the main draw.