Oh, how things changed......for the worse!

For me personally, it was actually more about uncertainty around what Sony and MS would do and the relative lack of faith in the ability to get their brands moving at a brisk pace from the start, leaving a nice window for Nintendo along with almost an entire year alone on the market. I never believed that the Wii's model was sustainable over time, especially given the Wii's immense crash on the market and the record sales plunge it took but I did believe that Nintendo had it in them to manage a decent follow-up if it was properly aimed (it wasn't...), well marketed (nope) and cleverly designed through and through (not so much this either). Up towards 50% of the Wii's lifetime seemed possible if the right choices were made, even with the majority of the Wii's customer base having fled to tablets and phones and social/browser games. In addition to the below link, I have also been chanting about the fall of the dedicated handheld console for many years in here, not a whole lot of people agreed that it was going to happen. And here we are today.

That said; I was really skeptical, especially about the Gamepad and I've been vocal about it ever since. I've written rather extensively about it in the famous UNITY thread (forced market convergence) if you want to have a look. Other than that, here's an example of some doubts concerning the whole Wii U concept: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4619667

I'd say that that's a fairly good take on the Wii U almost half a year before it launched.

Yes. I saw it from miles away. Despite a big marketing, no one was talking about it, there wasn't any hype where I lived. It's crazy some people thought Ninty had a 2nd Wii in their hands. The Wii was new in 2006 and had everyone's curiosity. What did WiiU do? "It has a screen in its controller!" Uh? People are already familiar with the concept of a tablet. The post launch line up looked terrible and 3rd party support was already low at e3 2012. WiiU was mostly getting 1 year old PS360 ports like Batman and Mass Effect.

WiiU really showed the old fashioned way of thinking of Nintendo, unable to adapt to new industry trends. They even announced it ~18 months before the actual release, on 2 E3s.

It was really good of Sony not announcing the console back at E3 2012. Not only is 18 months too long of a time to wait (especially when the gen was already 6 years long), but ever since the PS Meeting till launch, PS4 was the top story of gaming in the entire year. They did a fantastic job at hyping the conference up and raising the momentum, it still hasn't slowed down, crazy.

When it was announced yes.
Then they announced a couple of games (like monster hunter for japan) and they I tought "Nice, they won the casual and the 'hardcore' croud" so, no

And then, after seeing the sales, yes again

I had a bad feeling they would go the "modestly powered console comparable to a 360/PS3 + lets bank everything on a controller gimmick to sell the thing" route ... it's inherently risky going this route. If people love the controller, then sure it can work, but if you bet the entire farm on a gimmick that isn't as successful ... well, you can see what results from that.

Nintendo believed that banking on controller gimmicks was the new way to sell hardware ... they were wrong. Wiimote was a one-time thing that they could not replicate.

No, because I was just like: "omg! There will be a Metroid, Zelda, Mario (...) game with great graphics and the possibilities with the Gamepad are awesome! Casual and core gamers will buy a Wii U!"
But that was wrong, yes, I was hyped and so I didn't want to see the truth.
"I was so young. Young and naive."

Yes, but I ended up buying one anyway because....

1. I will now get a pile of cheap games on it.

2. It's actually awesome and works out to be great value

3. Local Multiplayer

4. Games for me and my kids

5. My wife will actually play the Wii U but boycotted my ps3 unless we playes crash bandicoot

6. It has all of the 3rd party support I need (re games I play here and thewre with a friend for 10 minutes). ie. Any single COD game, Any single FIFA game, Any single Madden game, 

7. My cruicial third party support which I have been lucky with i.e   Abe New N' Tasty (man oh, man), Bayonetta 2, Monster hunter, Tekken, Lego: Hobbit, Child of light, Guacamellee, teslagrad, James Pond, Watch dogs, Human Element etc etc. Enough to do me for a lifetime.

Man I lol'd at that far more than I should of :D 10/10

not flop but nowhere near what the Wii did, roughly 50-60 mil was what I thought it would do LTD

I expected the console to sell lesser than Wii, but not less than dreamcast. Ninty really sucked this time, best flop ever