Yeah I thought it would do bad but not this bad.

trestres doesn't show up much anymore.

I thought it wouldn't do good. I thought Nintendo did a very bad job in designing and marketing the console starting with that E3 and going on since. But as for the console as it stands now, I really like what is offered in terms of games and functionality.

I wish I had one just for Pikmin 3 and W101, and I can't say the same for offerings on other consoles even though I have a PS4. Maybe Sunset Overdrive, which will also be on a console I don't own, lol. Well okay there's RIME.

Person I'm thinking of is still an active member.

Yes . I knew it would be a failure as soon as both price and gamepad were shown. The wii was a success because it caught the attention of the current tablet and smartphone crowd just like the ps2 did with its dvd player. The wii u didnt invent a new market with its tablet, but instead chose to compete with apple. That was a very bad move because the ipad served as a computer aswell as a games console with 1 dollar or free games that kids and casuals will find just as much enjoyment with as any mario. Now nintendo has always had a place with the core consumer, but afte the wii many moved away because believe it or not. Most core users like good graphics. It didnt help either that nearly no 3rd party game was available on the system and even if it were it was a dramatically worse version. A lot of people started to think that nintendo platforms were inferior to the competition. The final nail in the coffin is the surge of indie titles which offer nintendo like titles for about a 3rd of a wii u game. I myself have gotten my quirky fix i would otherwise seek nintendo for, by downloading titles like journey, flower, trine and the likes off of psn. I feel like the only ones still with nintendo is very dedicated fans with incredible nostalgia towards the company. I predict that the best selling wii u title will be zelda even though the franchise has never sold particularly well, but nearly every nintendo fan still buying hanging around, does it for that one franchise. Mario has failed in terms of sales because the real nintendo fans have gotten enough of it after so many years, and the casuals are playing whatever is the current mobile fad.

Every Nintendo fan hanging around does so for Zelda.

Person you're thinking of didn't expect it to do this badly. 

kitler hasn't been a Nintendo fan in years.

yeah the name still confuses many

I thought it would do about 40m at most after playing with it at E3 2011. There was no reason to believe something so much less intuitive than Wii, with higher break even costs for publishers was going to be a mass market success. All the things that helped Wii (economics, intuitive design, marketing) were not apparent with the Wii U. The relative success in Japan (1.7m in Japan is like 5m in the US) implies it could have been more than it is, even within the reality of how it was designed with a couple of different decisions.

It's probably still possible for Wii U to have an extended streak at some point where it sells 50k-100k a week globally, but that's still less than 6m in a year, even if that 75k / week pace sustained  for 12 months. Wii did 6m in it's best month.