I apologize for the wall of text, but hopefully some of you will read through and share some thoughts.

We all know the Wii is one of the greatest success stories ever in gaming history and it surely made Nintendo an incredible amount of revenue during its lifespan. And it really had a lot to offer the core gamer, like fantastic first party games and the ability to purchase classics through Virtual Console. I still believe that Nintendo could have been in a far better situation in 2014 if they had offered a different product back in 2006.

What if Nintendo launched two different models in 2006? Both would have comparable specs to the other HD consoles. The basic version would be $300, and contain a Wii remote/nunchuck and Wii Sports. Same price as the cheapest X360 model, but the demand  was a lot bigger for the Wii. The other would be $350, and contain a Wii remote/nunchuck, a classic X360-style controller and Zelda: Twillight Princess HD. Alternatively $400 with a DVD-player as well. Which one would you buy, and which one would your mum buy? Would your mum be confused with the different models? Maybe, but not with good advertisements from Nintendo.

Why?

Obviously, Nintendo would have had a better chance of keeping their original audience, and it's successor would likely have been technically on par with a PS4 and an XboxOne. Also;

The Wii was underpowered and expensive. Remember how Nintendo insisted that gameplay is more important than graphics back in 2006? I guess we all can agree on that, and a lot of us used that phrase to excuse the Wii's weak hardware and we happily lined up to buy one. But come on, the Wii was incredibly overpriced for what it was and Nintendo got away with it cause the demand was sky high. The price was $250 in comparison to the $300 Xbox 360, which arguably offered a more, like HD graphics and DVD/CD compatility. Nintendo were greedy because they could, and Nintendo fans like me didn't really care because we like Nintendo and their games.

The Wii failed to attract popular multiplatform games. While it was blessed with a lot of niche quality games that often focused on artstyle over photorealism, people had to buy another console to play decent versions of Call of Duty and FIFA or any version of GTA, Battlefield, Bioshock, Mass Effect or Assassin's Creed. Those are games that appeal to a huge number of people with a passion for videogames. If the hardware was stronger, more of these games would have been on the Wii and Nintendo wouldn't have lost that audience to the competition.

The Wii was a secondary console to everyone except casual gamers and the most die-hard Nintendo fans. Core gamers had many reasons to pick up an Xbox or a PS3 after buying a Wii. And speaking for myself, I found it harder and harder to go back to playing in 480p once I got used to play in HD.

You weren't Nintendo's target audience with the Wii. Just look at their old commercials. Now that casual market has moved on and so have a lot of people that bought their old consoles.

Nintendo failed to be relevant for the core gamer after 2010. The Wii had an amazing 2010 line-up: Super Mario Galaxy 2, DKC Returns, Kirby's Epic Yarn, GoldenEye, Sonic Colors to name some. After that? Xenoblade, Skyward Sword and The Last Story and not much else. Third party games would have filled in the gaps.

Maintaining an audience should cost, and that audience shouldn't be ripped off.

-Captain Hindsight

Sounds dope does that mean the Xbox One and PS4 will dominate???

Fair point.

Even with hindsight, most of what you said might not have worked at those prices.

Nintendo is making the same mistakes with the wiiU that they made with the wii, and some new ones.

I seriously doubt Nintendo could have put out an HD console that was close to the 360's power AND do the whole motion control thing on top of that for just $299. No way was that going to happen. Prolly $350-$399, but the thing is if that were the case then the Wii would have never taken off like it did, because it's affordable price was one of the driving factors in it being perpetually sold out for the first year or so of its life, and none of the launch games required HD visuals or hardware similar to PS360 (Twilight Princess and Wii Sports were both essentially GameCube games with motion controls in terms of technology and visuals.)

The Wii U put the Wii U in its current situation by trying to be two different things at once and failing at both.

Nintendo put the Wii U in it's current situation regardless of what happened with the Wii. One year after launch, and the name still confuses the hell out of casual consumers. Chasing after the serious gamer crowd with games that were available on PS360 months ahead of time. Not securing enough exclusives from third parties or letting the exclusives it had go multiplat, like Rayman, Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge and Deus Ex Director's Cut. One of the worst marketing plans for a console known to man. Turning the virtual console into a joke, and moving like molasses to make a viable account system for digital downloads.

Every console generation gives each console maker a chance to change its fortunes by hitting it big or screwing up royally. Nintendo did the latter.

You might be right about the pricing. I still believe that a lot of Nintendo fans and people with as big a passion for gaming as you and me moved on to either the PS3 or the X360 (for various reasons). It doesn't look like a similarly powered Nintendo console is going to bring them back.

I'm kind of surprised that more parents aren't buying it for their families though. I mean parents with an interest in gaming, or parents to kids that wants one (or don't know that they want one, because of the lack of advertising).

I know it's not what you asked but I think that if the PS2 were a worse console, the PS3 would have been received worse in 2006.  You can succeed on your own merit or fail based on what your precursor did.

The mistakes of the hardware itself would have hurt the PS3 but the mistakes of the PS2 would have made those willing to give a PS3 a chance even more reluctant.  I bought an Xbox 360 in confidence partly because the PS1/PS2 was a shabby piece of crap.  Ironically, the 360 was a shabbier piece of crap!  Many avoided the Vita because, in spite of doing many things right, the high production story driven games of the PSP just didn't endear itself to them.  I know females that won't date outside of their race because some guy treated them like shit and fucked it up for everyone.  The Wii didn't fulfil it's promise to a lot of gamers that bought it.  The Wii U will never win those gamers back.  The Wii name is associated with "gimmick", "fad", "under-powered", "casual", etc.

It's not ALL that's wrong with the Wii U but it's part of it.