If it released this year people would've complained that they had no games to play on their Wii. Nintendo would've been making absolutely nothing from the Wii. Releasing last year, and failing, was a good thing. If they released this year, the Wii U would've been smashed by competition.

Read my post on the first page for a possible scenario that extends Wii life and reduces Wii U drought

Pikmin 3 wouldn't have been on the Wii either way. Development for that games was moved to Nintendo's HD console before 2012. They started it on the Wii, then moved it to the Wii U.

Also, taking about SW from the Wii U isn't such a good idea. The Wii U needs both DK and Pikmin in it's library.

What would the difference be? People now have nothing new to play on their brand new Wii U. No games means no games, doesn't matter which system doesn't have them. Nintendo had bad planning and would've had nothing ready for 2012 / 2013 either way.

How would Wii U be doing any worse than it currently is by releasing this year? At least if they had waited, Wii U could create some sort of momentum going. Since Wii U hasn't had a quality exclusive in over half a year, it has zero momentum going in.

If the WiiU had launched with their flagship mutliplayer games (Mario Kart, Smash Bros, NSMB, Mario Party?) as well as Nintendo Land, I think it would have quickly got the reputation of the console to have at parties. There would have been free advertising amongst friends on the console and it would have gained legs very quickly.

I don't understand why so many people hate the gamepad...
It is really neat and adds a lot to some  of the games.  What your asking is just great graphics for Nintendo franchises?
Nintendo is different and that is what I at least find the most appealing of all the consoles.

I meant they should have never switched It to Wii U. They woukdnt necessarily need them tho, my list has about 4-5 exclusives at launch and the 2014 schedule kept intact.

Fall 2012 was a good time to launch.

I think unfortunately they were pretty much hell bent on trying to repeat the Wii formula to a tee, even if its unrepeatable.

They probably capped the system at a horsepower just slightly above the 360/PS3 on purpose and focused their on making the machine small and energy efficient instead. Because that was the same formula the first Wii used.

If they had eased their power usage to 55w-60w and were OK with a system more along the size of the original NES or Super NES, they probably could've gotten a much more powerful chip in there for probably not a whole lot more money either. The expense of the Wii U chipset probably largely stems from Nintendo wanting an insanely low power draw, which requires a lot of R&D spending and a completely custom chip design.

If there were willing to use something like a modified 7750 GPU, they probably could've gotten that chip at a similar or maybe even lower cost as it's a more off-the-shelf part. Just tweak it to be more game centric.

The should've prepped for the launch better though. NSMBU should've had the tea table overturned early in development. The launch title for the Wii U cannot recycle old art assets and have crappy music, but some real production value and effort in things outside of just the level design.

I probably would've pulled some late gen Wii projects off the system and moved them to the Wii U -- The Last Story with redone graphics, probably would've been a nice Wii U launch title instead of a wasted late gen Wii game.

Another game for the launch window, like Wave Race, should've also been green lit. And maybe one more third party deal ... like say Soul Calibur game with Link/Zelda/Ganon and some Zelda based stages in there.

Drop the tablet controller but add remote play with a 200$ portable, ala Sony.

GREAT strategy x)

Everything you mentioned just sounds like any other console that comes from a manufacturer who is not looking to disrupt the market, but capitalize on existing concepts, exactly what sony and microsoft usually do and Nintendo don't.

Let the Wii U live differently and we may get graced with some new games not possible and imaginable before, for the usual experiences people are so used to, there's tons of consoles and always the almighty PC Master Race.

Only 50 euros cheaper than ps4?