I almost didn't want to make this post, because I don't want to feel like I'm just beating up on the Wii U all the time. But I do feel it needs to be said, now that there's a good number of first party games on the Switch at the moment. Simply put, Nintendo's problem in the Wii U era was that they pandered too much to their core audience. I know that sounds like a backwards thing to complain about but let me explain. I compared the style of Nintendo's Switch era first party games to the style of their Wii U era games before, and how Nintendo's Wii U games for the most part, felt overly sterile and safe compared to their more lively and contemporary Switch counterparts. But another big difference between their Switch era games vs the Wii U era ones is that their Switch era titles have a lot more broad appeal vs. their Wii U era games.
First, let's provide some context. Wii was a phenomenon, but it unfairly or not had the stigma of being a casual console for casual gamers, not a hardcore system for true Nintendo fans. With the Wii U, Nintendo wanted to get away from this stigma, which is good. The problem is that they over-corrected it. Wiimotes were swapped out for a giant tablet with screen aside was basically a "traditional controller". Nintendo tried making their games more complex and "core focused" and tried to get western third parties on board. Aside from the name, Wii U was a complete 180 from the Wii in terms of philosophy and design ethos. It was complex, intimidating, and niche.
But the niche-ness really shined through in Nintendo's own software. To be clear, Niche games aren't a bad thing, and can spice up a library with some variety every now and again, but they can't be the majority of your output on the console. NintendoLand, which was supposed to be the Wii Sports casual hit for the system that could also appeal to Nintendo fans with the use of classic franchises, was instead a confused, over-designed mess that appealed to neither. Now don't get me wrong, I think Nintendo Land is a great game, and one of Nintendo's better original titles for the Wii U, but it was a clear sign something was wrong with this system.
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New Super Mario Bros. U was a tired retread of the NSMB formula, not helped by the fact that it was released 3 months after New Super Mario Bros. 2. It only existed because Nintendo felt their core fans loved side-scrollers so much they wanted one for a new console launch.
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The Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2 appealed to fans of Platinum's work and little else,
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Tropical Freeze and Wooly World were great, but derivative side-scrollers on a console that was already over dominated with them.
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Xenoblade Chronicles X only appealed to fans of the first game.
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Hyrule Warriors was just a pure fan-service title with little appeal to those who aren't Zelda fans.
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Pikmin 3 is the third entry in a relatively niche series, that was hyped up to the Wii U's biggest title by Miyamoto.
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Star Fox Zero was yet another retread of the original because that's what the fans are familiar with.
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And Super Mario 3D World was derived from the 3DS title that focused more on arcade style level challenges over exploration and thematically cohesive set-pieces like the previous titles, only appealing to those who like the more classical Mario gameplay style, which is mostly hardcore Nintendo fans.
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All the while Wii Sports, Fit and Party get low effort token releases as to not divert too many resources to those filthy casual games /s
You see where I'm getting at here. Notice how Mario Kart 8, Splatoon, Smash, and Mario Maker were the only Wii U titles that made any cultural impact on the mainstream market, and they arrived far too late in the system's life to do anything long term. And then there's Miiverse. The great idea, poorly implemented social network almost exclusively for Nintendo fans to draw and comment on their favorite games, and was mostly ignored by everyone else in favor of actual social media platforms.
Wii U is the basically the connoisseur's Nintendo console. A platform that appeals almost entirely to the hardcore fans of the brand. And if that's your thing, it's a great system in that context. The problem was that the Wii U just wasn't a good mainstream Nintendo console. It catered far too much to Nintendo loyalists, that it ignored everyone that actually mattered in the mainstream. What about The casual gamers? The past Wii owners? The PS4 and Xbox One gamers? The mobile gamers? There was nothing, no third party support, no compelling first party support, and no compelling hardware hook. I know people weren't a fan of the direction Nintendo took their later Wii games and believe me there is criticism to be had there, but Wii U was very much the other extreme in this sense.
The Switch is a far better Nintendo console for the mainstream gamer than its predecessor. One key thing Nintendo has learned from the Wii U and later Wii days was that different games work for different people. In other words, don't try and hope one game will appeal to Nintendo fans and non-fans alike, because that doesn't work. Switch has far more variety in content, genre, and gameplay than the Wii U did.
TL;DR - Wii U was too focused on trying to please Nintendo fans dissatisfied with the Wii that it ended up excluding audiences that actually matter long-term.
