They should have ditched the gamepad. Released it as Wii 2, with HD Nintendo graphics, a Pro controller, and maybe a Wii Remote, fully backwards compatible. Without the gamepad, maybe they could have released at 250.

The marketing writes itself, "We would like to play 2 (too)". Market the fact that all your Wii Games and accessories carry over, and I think that would have done much better for Nintendo. 

I think so yes, but it's too late now. 

If they wanted to use the Wii brand to make money, Wii 2 would have been much simpler and easy to understand.  When a company has to make it clear that their new console IS a new console two years after releasing it, it's clear you have a terrible name.

Go ahead and try to think of a worse name than Wii U using the Wii brand name.

150k baseline since first day guaranteed. 

Uhhh k. Everything you said is there with the exception fo the pro controller. I don't understand why so many people think they should ditch the gamepad. There is nothing wrong with the gamepad in the slightest. After having the system for nearly 2 years now, when I play my brothers 360 or my buddies PS3 I am often trying to quickly and easily change weapons with the tap of an icon on the edge of the gamepad as opposed to toggeling through to find what I want or pause and then find it. Those are the majority of games I play at their places so that is the biggest change so far, but when I'm at home, half of the time I am playing solely on my gamepad due to my wife watching TV. Not to mention a bigger map that is often more detailed with many games, but the biggest thing is for quick switch items or item usage on many games like MH or UnEpic, COD, Splintercell, Batman ect ect. 

They certainly dropped the ball on the name and the marketing, but I don't think the issue here is the gamepad. My brother didn't know the Wii U was a new console, he thought the gamepad was a peripheral to the Wii, that is entirely due to terrible marketing and not informing the customer base. They could have worked much harder at changing the look of the machine in comparison to the Wii as well, that might have helped. I'm not saying this is difnitive, but it's my experience with it anyway.

I like the gamepad, but ditching it would have allowed a much lower price. That's what I mean by getting rid of the gamepad.

The name was a pretty big mistake. I think Wii 2 would have been better, at least then it sounds like a successor console and not an add-on.

Marketing has been none existent.

It would have been so awesome if the WiiU's name was " Ultra Nintendo Entertainment System"...  It would be a nostalgic, yet effective name!

How is this less confusing for grandma when she is buying birthday presents? PS4 = blue banner, PS3 = black banner, PS Vita = blue banner but smaller.

To all of us the PS logo looks nice but I guess when grandma looks at it she sees a strange looking question mark (P in PS) and some strange geometrical worm (S in PS) followed by what might be a number (it is hard to see what it should be especially the 3 - following the logic from the P the 3 should be read as B)

The DS to 3DS change was even more strange but it turned ot quite OK.

The DS and 3DS look the same, just having the banner on different sides. (It took me quite some time to understand the difference)

The Wii and Wii U have at least different looks on their banners as well as different colors.

MS made the best graphical change: they still have the green but X360 & XOne differ in looks much more than PS or Nintendo.

Wii U has nothing to do with original Wii. Of course it should've been changed. Does Nintendo think consumers are that stupid?