Alternate history: Switch a generation earlier

[JWeinCom]

I don't think it would have made a huge difference.

There were certainly hardware flaws with the Wii U, but I think people underestimate how much of its failure was due to bad games.

For me, I was bullish on the Wii U. I thought the hardware design had potential. The moment I thought "oh wow this thing is doomed" was at their E3 conference where they showed off Mario Kart 8, Wind Waker, Tropical Freeze, and Mario 3D World. All of these were actually good games, but none of them were system sellers. They were pretty safe and mostly unambitious sequels. The same thing can be said for a lot of the Wii U's lineup. NSMBU, Game and Wario, Wii Fit U, Wii Sports Club... There just weren't a lot of great games for Wii U, particularly in its first year. They did get some games that could have moved hardware later on (Mario Maker, Splatoon, Smash 4, BOTW) but it was too little too late.

In this scenario, we basically have the 3DS but with remote play as the key selling point instead of the 3D feature. That's definitely a plus. I personally love the 3D, but I'm clearly in the minority on that one as most people think it's a minor addition at best. So, that would probably boost sales somewhat, but assuming they didn't have a massive price cut as they did with the 3DS in reality, that will be mitigated. Also, I don't think the play on the go feature is as appealing with 2011 tech. I feel like the gap between XBox and Xbox 360 was much bigger than the gap between PS3 and PS4 (in terms of the user experience, not necessarily the technology). The Switch I feel offers something that feels at least comparable to what was being offered at the time with the PS4/XBone. So, it feels at least close to playing console games on the go, whereas this hypothetical system would feel more like playing handheld games at home. That said, I still see that boosting sales of the 3DS by a decent amount. Like 10-20million just to throw a number out there.

Then, what does the Wii U lineup add to the equation? IMO not much. First off, they would be redundant. Early on the only noteworthy game would be NSMBU, which would be an upgrade over NSMB2. Then there wouldn't be anything really of note. They wouldn't do two Mario Kart games, so we'd just maybe get a better version of 7. 3D World and Land are also sort of redundant, but maybe they'd release World as a sequel. Either way, wouldn't do a whole lot. What else was there really that's going to push sales?

The TL:DR version of this post, is that I am firmly of the belief that the biggest problem with the Wii U was actual its incredibly mediocre library. Adding those games to the 3DS wouldn't have helped its sales all that much, particularly as the 3DS had similar titles. The Switchability feature may have helped modestly.