Looking back at why the Wii U failed

[Wman1996]

curl-6 said:

It failed because where the Wii removed barriers to entry for gaming, the Wii U added them.

The Wiimote made gaming simple, accessible, and fun. The Wii U Gamepad made it cumbersome and convoluted.

It was a gimmick nobody asked for, it added to the price of the system, and the fact only one was supported per console complicated multiplayer.

So true. The GamePad was one of the aspects that sank the Wii U.

It added a lot of the cost to the console (about $79 in production costs which means over $100 to the pricing of the console at launch), was only usable by one player on the console, was required for some games, and even was required for the initial setup and tweaking settings on the console. Not to mention it had a resistive touchscreen, 480p resolution, and looks like a Fisher Price toy. 

Sure, a Wii Remote is required to navigate the Wii. But a ton of them were made and they're much cheaper than the GamePad. 

Nintendo really should've patched out the GamePad from being required for system settings and sold SKUs of Wii U without it. And of course, there should have been at least 2 Game Pad multiplayer supported like originally planned.