Why did the WiiU fail?

[wombat123]

StuOhQ said:

SvennoJ said:

The name did sound like a mid gen upgrade or add-on. Yet they didn't have that problem with the nes and snes.
For marketing, I guess Nintendo got lazy after all the viral marketing the Wii got. It sells itself! Maybe not.

I still talk to people who say they skipped a Wii U because, despite having a tablet, it was "still a Wii". 

I don't even correct them at this point. The damage has LONG been done. 

Another mistake for the Wii U was that the actual console looked waaaaay too much like the Wii, which reinforced the misconception that the Wii U was an add-on gamepad.  Hell, that might have been a reason why the 3DS didn't sell as well as the DS; maybe people just got confused with the name and the fact that the physical 3DS handheld itself looked like a late gen DS remodel with a 3D add-on gimmick.