We've all talked and talked about why we think Wii U had a slow start. Some believe is lack of power while others believe the Gamepad provides nothing and then there are those that state its high price and lack of specific games.

However, while all the things most people point are various levels of negative factors on Wii U's value proposition to potential consumers, none of them are the root cause and the primary reason Wii U has staggered so much in the market since its November launch.

New Experiences

That's it. That's the golden nugget that is missing from Wii U. There is nothing NEW that clearly defines Wii U as a new product, a new console. This is why many consumers still think Wii U was simply an add-on to Wii.

Let's review the launch games.

EA - only provided months to years old ports. Nothing new. Nothing "next-gen" or even latest current gen. On top of that only one of their 5 games was a quality port; other 4 were actually missing features or cannibalized by a clearly better offer on PS360.

Activision - Late COD game and Skylanders/wipeout 3, two clearly current-gen games. Again nothing new. Nothing "next-gen".

Ubisoft - Late AC3 game, ESPN sports / your shape / rabbids land / Just Dance 4... all clearly current-gen games, and ZombiU.

Warner Bros - year Late BatmanAC, game party and scribblenauts unlimited (new game but what's new as compared to even DS game?)

THQ - A very late port of a lackluster game Darksiders II.

Disney - Epic Mickey 2 (new game but what's different as compared to part one?)

2K - NBA 2K (late port) and Transformers Prime (current gen crap)

SEGA - Sonic racer (new game but nothing new again)

NAMCO - Tank game that is freeware and a late Tekken game with nothing new

Nintendo - NintendoLand (seems like a Wii Play / Party type of game that shows nothing new that wasn't achievable on Wii)
- NSMBU (viewed as NSMBWii from outside. again no wow factor)
- Ninga Gaiden 3 (very late port of another meh game)
- Sing Party (yep... clearly a current gen game, even older really)

See the pattern here? NOTHING NEW.

Every game was either a literal old game with various levels of quality put into porting the game OR it was a rehash of a current gen game with markedly no visual improvements. Nothing screamed "WOW this is new".

The only game remotely showing the console off as a new experience was ZombiU. A game that did have great attachment rates (14%) but was not a gameplay type that pushed mass market. It has those who love it (me) or hate it (rol). But it clearly wasn't a game that pushed "next-gen" feel. Anyone looking at it woudl have concluded its a current-gen game and frankly might of had enough of the zombie genre in the first place. Though had WiiU sold 5m+ as planned, it would have sold over a million easily by now.

NES had SMB a light gun and quite a few other games at or near launch that demanded people take a look.
SNES had SMW that clearly defined it as a new console.
N64 had M64 that again clearly defined a new generation.
Wii had motion controls and Wii Sports. It didn't need the power/visuals to prove it. Wii had a clearly definable feature that was next-gen. So much so it forced its competitors to create similar controls.

Gamecube, while powerful, had nothing up front. Mario Sunshine and Luigi Mansion didn't seem that much different than N64's best. Metroid isn't a big enough franchise.

Wii U has nothing. Gamepad isn't defined as unique or new in any manner. None of the games do what Wii Sports did. None of the games are new in any fashion visually or anything else that is quickly noticeable in a commercial.

Fact is, Nintendo did not plan its games well for launch or really this first year at all.

They needed that one title that proved its a new console, a new experience.

They should have put Retro on a new westernized IP that pushed graphics hard. Not some barely upgraded DK game. (same reason why NSMBU isn't pushing shit) They had years... all wasted on a game that could just be on Wii.

They should have put focus on that true HD Zelda surpassing even their E3 demo.

Pikmin3 and SMU won't push hardware either. Both will be great games, but they don't scream "new".

Really, the only thing coming up that says "new" is Ubisoft's Watch_Dogs... a multiplatform game that is even coming to current gen. Granted WiiU's version is same as PS4/XB1, but will anyone really notice?

In the end, Nintendo will dramatically improve its base this holiday, but with the games its putting out, I think it will only sell to "its" Nintendo base. Not the extended base that bought Wii. Those will stick to no console (waiting on cheaper options) or buy PS4/XB1 (only place new experiences are obvious).

Nintendo has a marketing problem and they are too stubborn to give 3rd parties what they want, like Sony and Microsoft do.

I love Nintendo games but there is just too much competition for them to carry themselves alone, not to mention that they dropped the ball with about everything regarding the launch of the Wii U.

Honestly I'm not sure what the bold means.  Nintendo does do marketing but I do agree that their marketing efforts are weak in comparison to Sony and Microsoft.

I don't think we know much at all with what Nintendo is doing with/to their 3rd parties, or that their competition really gives that much of what their 3rd parties want.  Also, giving too much power to 3rd parties would make it that you no longer are in control of your own console, and I am pretty sure Nintendo doesn't want to give up all the control they have.  I do think, though, that they should reach out more to 3rd parties for exclusives (multiplats too, but it's not as important considering the power difference between the PS4/XB1 and Wii U, most will go for the other consoles).

The italics part, I think it's more post-launch than the launch itself.  Wii U launched well with a good lineup available at launch, they just didn't follow through.

They should do a promotion where you get $20 off The Wonderful 101 or something ($39.99) through the eShop when you purchase any one of Zelda: WWHD, Pikmin 3, DKC: Tropical Freeze, or Super Mario 3D World this holiday season.

I was talking about Nintendo making their system incredibly less powerful than the Ps4 and Xbone, that developers dont even want to bother with the Wii U especially when it wont bring them a huge profit. Nintendo has done it in the past with the Wii which was hardly more powerful than the original Xbox, and the 3ds which is around 50% more powerful than the PsP. And just because those systems are really successful, i have no idea why Nintendo decided to test their luck with 3rd parties again when the stakes are so high.

The Wii U's launch was not as good as it could have been, Rayman and Pikmin 3 were delayed for almost a year.

bold: Where did you get that from? 

PSP CPU Chip:

• Sony CXD2962GG CPU
• Based on MIPS R4000 32-bit Core
• 90 nm Semiconductor CMOSProcess
• 1-333 MHz (set at 222 MHz by default) @ 1.2 V
• 16 kB Instruction Cache / 16 kB Data Cache
• SiP:
  • 32 MB eDRAM @ 2.6 Gbit/s
  • Embedded FPU
  • Embedded Vector FPU @ 3.2GFLOPS
  • Embedded Graphics Core:
    • 1-166 MHz (set at 111 MHz by default) @ 1.2 V
    • 256-bit Bus at 5.3 Gbit/s
    • 2 MB eDRAM (VRAM)
    • 3D Curved Surface and 3D Polygon
    • Compressed Textures
    • Hardware Clipping, Morphing, Bone(8)
    • Hardware Tessellator Unit, 4 passes per cycle
    • Bézier surface, Bézier curve and B-Spline (NURBS)
      • 4×4, 16×16, 64×64 Subdivision
    • Rendering Engine and Surface Engine
    • Pixel Fill Rate: 600 Megapixels/s
    • Up to 33 Million Polygon/s (with Transform and Lighting)
    • 24-bit Full Color: RGBA
• 128-bit Bus at 2.6 Gbit/s
• 3D-CG Extended Instruction Set

Media Engine Chip:

• Sony CXD1876 CPU
• Based on MIPS R4000 64-bit Core
• 90 nm Semiconductor CMOS Process
• 1-333 MHz (set at 222 MHz by default) @ 1.2 V
• 16 kB Instruction Cache / 16 kB Data Cache
• SiP:
  • 2 MB eDRAM @ 2.6 Gbit/s
  • Embedded Virtual Mobile Engine (VME) Sound Core
    • Reconfigurable DSP Engine
    • 1-166 MHz (set at 166 MHz by default) @ 1.2 V
    • 128-bit Bus
    • 24-bit Data Path
    • 5 giga operations/s
  • Embedded MPEG-4 (H.264/AVC) hardware decoder
  • Embedded FPU

128-bit Bus @ 2.6 Gbit/s

Memory:

• Samsung K5E5658HCM-D060
• Main Memory: 32 MB 333 MHz DDR SDRAM (64 MB   )
• 8 MB reserved for Kernel

Integrated or Support Chips:

• IDStorage Keys: stores screen brightness, volume, region, date, time and BIOSdata also known as the Ipl
• Tachyon: version information for CPU, Media Engine and Graphic Cores
• Baryon: version information for the PSP's system control chip
• Pommel: the PSP's GPIO and Watchdog
• Kirk: the PSP's main encryption processor

Spock: secondary encryption processor, used to decrypt signed UMD data

Then you have the 3DS that doesn't have as much details for its specs, but I know for sure that the 3DS isn't only "50% more powerful" than the PSP.

edit: "The Wii U's launch was not as good as it could have been, Rayman and Pikmin 3 were delayed for almost a year."
Both of those games were post-launch games, and therefore are post-launch problems.

Damn, that was harsh, but a very well written post. I agree with your general statement.

OK, maybe the 3ds is more powerful than 50% but the specs are similar. The point is, Nintendo makes hardware that is hardly more powerful than the generation before it, and this time they got kicked in the ass because of it. They rely too much on past success, which was the same problem Sony had when they launched the Ps3.

and Rayman and Pikmin 3 were launch window games until they got delayed almost a year.

yes like GameCube ¬¬

they started doing it after the DS and Wii, but the gamecube also had storage problem because of those small disks and the N64 had 3rd party problems because of the cartiges