Have you seen the launch games? They are more like steps in the wrong direction.

No matter how powerful Nintendo's console is or was, people looking for movies, music, etc. on top of their video gaming experience will always go other routes first. I don't know what Nintendo could have done differently, to be honest. Unless third parties are willing to get behind their hardware and push the consoles, Nintendo will be where Nintendo is.

The Wii sold on unique hardware alone. Even then, it didn't get the support the other consoles did. Companies went out of business avoiding making games on the Wii. Nintendo has to go a different route. I'm still not counting the Wii U out yet.

I don't think that a more powerful Wii u would have matched the ps4/Xbox1 in sales but I think it would have done much better than the existing Wii u. If the console were stronger, I see devs more likely to support it and more gamers getting it. Plus Mario and Zelda with "next-gen" graphics would have been even more compelling for gamers.

A stronger WiiU wouldn't have made much of a difference. The hardcore crowd would have just waited for the next Sony and Microsoft consoles. The casual crowd are content with their phones and tablets.

Not sure. I don't think power is holding back Wii U at this stage. They may have missed an opportunity, but I look more at marketing and content as the flaws thus far, not power. Look at PS4. What is the biggest title by far? COD: Ghosts. A title that is available on Wii U and is only marginally improved for PS4. People are buying PS4 right now almost entirely because they are people who love Playstation and because of image and marketing. Nintendo dropped the ball by not promoting Wii U in the right way and by not having a killer title at launch. The system should have launched with SM3DW and COD:Blops2 pushed hard as the killer titles. One showing what the new system could do, one trying to grab the attention of the PS360 crowd.

I think another major thing that hurt the Wii U launch was a number of customers moved from Wii to PS360 when they got HDTV's after the Wii launch. This large batch of Nintendo-friendly consumers who were late PS360 adopters either weren't itching for a new system, or maybe have a bad taste in their mouth from Wii's SD visuals and lack of AAA third party titles like AC and COD. This particular (large) demographic needs something really exciting to bring them back to the Wii brand, something that has been largely missing as of Nov 21, 2013.

I believe, at this point, that it's too late to worry about that.

Nintendo long ago ceded much of the gaming market to Microsoft and Sony. They concentrated on platformers, then on motion controlled games, until it reached a point where a significant portion of the gaming public was no longer even considering Nintendo consoles.

As far as I can tell, Nintendo eschewed variety in order to stay "family friendly", probably with the idea that many of the new genres and types of games would be fads. They've ignored a large segment of gamers up to this point and it's not going to be easy to win them over.

A) The Wii U GPGPU is fairly current, just not top of the line, and I'd hardly call it "gimped".

B) Nintendo cannot afford to make the kind of overpowered system like Microsoft and Sony can. Those companies are mega-corporations that make their money through other products NOT related to video gaming, and can afford to throw millions of dollars out the window on console cost.

C) The argument that Wii U "isn't next gen" is beyond old, and ignorant besides. It absolutely is, far more so than the Wii was last gen. And the fact of the matter is, Wii U did not come out with any one game that was a "must have". Not only has it not had a truly "must have" piece of software to drive sales yet, but then they went and had that massive drought in 2013, which totally killed whatever momentum Wii U built up. From launch through the end of 2012, Wii U sold around 3 million units. That's pretty fuckin' good, honestly, and shows me that even WITHOUT a "killer ap" title, there was in fact enthusiasm for it. The third party publishers were also obviously on board at launch, even if it was mostly ports, the point is, it was a bunch of ports of the kinds of games that Wii in most cases never got, which was a great sign. And then, again, the drought happened, no "must have" game, system sales tanked, and there you go.

It's not rocket science, and at this point these types of threads are really beating a dead horse. It is by NO means "too late" for Wii U. In fact I fully expect it to still continue a gradual resurgance as games like Mario 3D World, and Mario Kart 8, and Smash Bros., etc. continue to come out. The one thing I keep hearing, personally, from a lot of folks, is that they would buy a Wii U, but just haven't had that one or two games that really gave them the reason to yet. Well now those games are coming. Mostly next year, yes, but they're still coming. The next Zelda is guaranteed to turn some heads, "X" has a lot of RPG fans hyped, and Nintendo obviously has many other unrevealed games in the works as well.

You can absolutely make the argument that Nintendo missed a major opportunity for a much bigger lead over the competition than they currently have. They did totally drop the ball, and the worst part is, it all could have been avoided by better development cycle management. But their missed opportunity does not spell then end for them, they are absolutely still going to be in the thick of this three-way console race, and it certianly has nothing to do with whether or not they had made Wii U's hardware more powerful.

Better games would've helped the Wii U but honestly ... simply put I don't think people want another PS3/360 level system. Not even one moderately better. It has to *blow* the PS3/360 out of the water. 

"Well it's not as bad as the gap between the Wii and 360/PS3, and maybe some engines will scale pretty well" is not something that excites any one. People have waited 6-7 years to leave behind their PS3/360 and quite honestly I can't blame them for being fixated on systems that offer a more substantial upgrade. 

Nintendo miscalcuated by thinking they could re-use the Wii formula this generation -- ie: a console that has more in common hardware wise with the existing generation driven by a new controller novelty. What they did by making their system too close to the PS3/360 was make the most red ocean console possible. 

It's compounded by the fact that the market for mini-game compilations and casual games is dying right in front of them. Wii Party U and Mario & Sonic look to join Game & Wario in the bomb bin and Nintendo's already bailed on Nintendo Land being the lead pack-in for the Wii U in under a year. 

I don't think powerful specs would have changed wii u's fortunes. Wii u's software output, the gamepad, among other things, in addition to u's overall philosophy i think is the cause of it flopping.

They certainly did miss a golden op though.

The Wii U is a just HD Game Cube.