Years after it was released for the HD consoles a significantly inferior version of Modern Warfare sold (roughly) 1.5 Million copies on the Wii. I see no reason to believe that an enhanced (in many ways) version of Grand Theft Auto 5 released for the Wii U at the same time as the other versions would not sell well enough to turn a significant profit based on porting costs.

As has been pointed out by several people, the average gamer buys about 3 games a year; and, while they would be happy to pick up a high quality well know game that is available for a platform they own, most of them are not going to buy additional platforms simply to play these games. With well over 100 million gamers who have access to a Wii, it is highly likely that at least 20 Million would have had some interest in a high quality game like GTA being released for the Wii, and at least 4 Million of them would have bought it if it was available. A large portion of these potential purchases are from people who buy 2 or 3 games a year, could be convinced to buy 4 or 5 games in a year, and were not willing to spend several hundreds of dollars on a system to gain access to 1 or 2 additional games.

This is not significantly different from exclusive games released for a platform. While I own an XBox 360, PC and Wii and I am interested in games like Uncharted, Little Big Planet and Killzone there are already more game releases that I'm interested in on platforms I own than I could ever play to justify buying a PS3 to play these games. In a similar fashion, for a gamer who is only buying 2 or 3 games a year, there are already far more games released for the Wii that they're interested in than they could ever play to justify spending money on an HD console just to play GTA.

This is not a difficult concept, we see this behaviour every time there is a popularity shift towards one console manufacturer, and yet people can't seem to see it. 24 Million more people bought Mario Kart for the Wii than bought it for the Gamecube not because they weren't interested in the game for the Gamecube, but because they didn't own the Gamecube their interest in the game was irrelevant towards the purchase of the game. 7 Million people that bought Gran Turismo for the PS2 did not buy it for the PS3 not because they weren't interested in the game for the PS3, but because they didn't own the PS3 their interest in the game was irrelevant towards the purchase of the game.

The entire bolded paragraph only backs up what i was saying. Who will be justified in buying a Wii U just for GTA if they already have the console or system that can play it? I seriously doubt that much people will spend a couple of hundred to play a version with a map on the tablet and maybe a few extra minigames. I think your really underestimating the user base of the PS360. I gaurentee that most people who want GTA 5 already have a system that will run it, hell ill take it a step further. If they didnt buy it there would still be at least two chealer alternatives than the Wii U, if they just wanted to play GTA.

With that said, I never said they shouldnt, i think they should, but dont expect it to do that well.

People won't just be buying the console for GTA though they'll just be getting GTAV to start themselves off, I'm getting a U because I like Nintendo's first party offering and Pikmin 3 is confirmed for it early on but I'm still going to get RE6 and GTAV if they're out on the U even though I have a PS3 and 360 because they'll be the enhanced versions and it'll start me off just fine on the console. People should drop the notion that someone is buying it just for GTAV or what not because that is not the case, people will be buying a console for numerous reasons which is why being a launch title has always been a huge benefit as you start people's libraries off and the userbase becomes accustomed to you early on.

Yes, but as we've seen in the past, 3rd partys will only develop to the lowers common demonator, being the 360. So i wouldn't expect special features or a better looking game. Maybe a map or somehting for the tablet, but that's about it, hardly worth getting it on the wiiU.