Opinion: Wii U’s Failure Had Little To Do With The Gamepad.

[Pajderman]

I think the gamepad still was one of the main factors why WiiU did not succeed. Not because it was bad, I think the pad was well designed. But it somewhat felt like they designed the pad before they conceived the game ideas that needed it. And the marketing almost exclusively focused on the pad leaving the actual console in the shadow.
So I think the pad needs to take some of the blame even if the tech was good and using it was comfortable.