I don't believe that.

There are clear sales spikes when new versions are released. In general, people know.

Look, I'm not saying Nintendo handled all this well. They didn't. At the very least they should have emphasized the 'U' instead of the 'Wii', in it's name and logo. There are always going to be people that are confused though, no matter what. I'm just positive that 'name-confusion' is an extremely minor problem compared to the system's other problems. The sign in OP's store was probably only put up because there were three people in a row asking if they could play games with the blue boxes on a white Nintendo.

Justinian, you're not understanding. My point is, people are stupid because they can't tell the difference between Wii-WiiU (therefor, nobody buys it). But they can tell the difference between iPhone 5 and 5S (which there's not a big enough difference), and they keep buying one as fast as a new version releases.

That covers the White and Blue cases, but then Nintendo goes and makes green cases (Luigi U).  And then they go ahead and make red cases (Mario Kart 8) which end up looking like the Nintendo Select games for Wii.  That EB will need to make more signs...

$79?! *faints*

Using a number i.e 5 or ps2  is a much better marketing tool than using say a word like Wii which was only ever a Wii and then adding a U to it. The letter U is rarely used by itself, but is.....well....it's stupid. Also your 5S comparison is a little off. The 5 was a success and then the 5S was just meant to be an improvment and the name makes us aware of that. The Wii and the Wii U would be more comparable to an iphone 4 and an iphone 5 where the charges is different, as are most of the accesories.

Its Nintendo's fault for targeting casuals in the first place. And then naming their console Wii-U thinking it would pull the same audience. 1 thing they missed is that the audience they wanted to pull again are dumb.

This. I think some overzealous Ninty fans are just feeling jaded that the system is not doing so hot. So they look to blame a group or find any excuse for it. Fact is there is no confusion, theres indifference. people dont care about the Wii U. Period. Hell they stopped caring much about the Wii toward the end.

Its funny cause when Wii was selling well nobody was really complainng about stupid casuals.

no you are not understanding. Im sure most people can tell the difference. LOL they are not buying it because they are confused they are not buying it becasue they dont want it. They buy iphone whatever cause they WANT it. Despite being little difference.

I can agree more with that.

And you are missing my point by ignoring the fact that people generally care a lot more about phones and therefore are far more knowledgable about these products. They know the difference. Apple can call their phone anything they like, MS can call Windows whatever they want, Samsung can call their Galaxy range of phones anything they want. People will know the difference because they WANT to know the difference.

IF former Wii owners or casual gamers CARED enough for the Wii U or even cared enough to investigate the Wii U they will know what it is about. THEY DON'T CARE ENOUGH. For this it is wrong to call them stupid.

I do not care for celebrities. I do not care about what they do, who they marry or what they eat for breakfast. In a pub quizz face off I got a question on some celebrity I barely heard of and got it wrong. Does that make me stupid because pretty much everyone else knew the answer?

I don't read celebrity rubbish because it doesn't interest me. Many people don't know the difference between the Wii and Wii U because it doesn't interest them. Is this so hard to understand?

To be perfectly honest even if they did I doubt it would have changed the current situation with the console much, but that's speculation.

The thing is we both kinda agree that the name IS NOT the problem.. or so I think.