Alternate History: Wii U as a standard 8th gen console

[Wman1996]

RolStoppable said:

This sounds similarily bad to the actual Wii U. Hardware sold at a loss all the same, same (actually worse) first party droughts combined with being an immediate no-go in comparison to the PS4, because this hypothetical console would be missing out on most multiplatform games from the get-go.

$350 for the actual Wii U, including a game, was a tough sell already. But $400 for a console without a game included, a console that was going to miss out on most multiplats is worse. This would have likely sold less than the Wii U, because an early (and necessary) price cut would be even harder to stomach for Nintendo than it was for the real Wii U. Not to mention that PS4-level of graphics would have led to even more delays for Nintendo's first party games.

I suppose the only way not to sell Wii U at a loss while having better specs than it ended up having would be to ditch the tablet, but still make it a lot weaker than PS4 and Xbox One.

Wii U could've had 4 GB RAM like Switch and a more up-to-date RAM at the time. The CPU and GPU could also be something below the other 8th generation processors but better than the actual Wii U and easier for devs to work with.