It's a chicken and the egg scenario. Most diehard Nintendo fans haven't seen good third party support since the SNES era. That's two decades ago. Any newer Nintendo fans have seen nothing but crap and half hearted efforts 3rd parties. At this point, an audience would have to be essentially built from the ground up. I look at younger gamers like my cousin. He's 14 years old, he's never seen a Nintendo home console with good third party support. He doesn't even consider third party games on Nintendo platforms because he's never had a reason too.

The problem isn't that they didn't come to the party. They come to a party too late and no one was there. Everyone who liked 3rd party games on Nintendo systems started moving on for the last 3 gens. More so in GCN and Wii days. Hence why he said  "You reap what you sow."

You can't expect Nintend only gamers to just suddenly purchase a 3rd or 4th game in the series without playing the first 2.

Those who moved on are not going to buy the Wii U version because it lacks DLC etc... which they can get on the PS4/ONE at the same cost. I myself buy most my 3rd party on PS4 now that I got one of those.

If they never release at the same time as games on the other platforms and aren't supported with DLC then why would any customer pick up the DLC less late version that doesn't run as well? Those games didn't sell below expectations because they are mature but because Ubisoft specifically made the Wii U versions of less value due to their decisions.

If the games were late they missed out on marketing and hype. Everyone knows how much that means to so called mature titles which tend to be far more front loaded in sales. Launching that title after the others even at a discounted price it still has less percieved value.

The system is more powerful than 7th gen systems and still has issues running. Once again the game is of lesser value in comparison to other versions. No future support with additional content once again makes the Wii U version have less value in comparison to the others.

If Ubisoft can't treat Wii U customers as if they are as valuable as ps4/3 or X1/360 then they really shouldn't expect those levels of sales. Shitty performance late ports don't tend to sell on par with originals even on Playstation and Xbox platforms. I don't know why just showing up is supposed to be sufficient on Nintendo systems. These scenarios aren't something that Xbox and PlayStation owners would support on their platforms.

I think the only problem is you said, "they tried their best." They could have done better, it just wouldn't have been worthwhile.

Ubisoft gave the Wii U great support, but people just wanna nit pick Ubisoft for what they didn't do.

Wii Owner can still change their fortune, just buy watch dogs in masses and send a message.

We would have crossed into a world where Wii U fans care about core games.

You know what the worst part is, Ubisoft are the ones (non nintendo) that had the most success on the wii U

There is some validity to that argument, but it doesn't excuse the abysmal sales of virtually all the core games.

There is just a general lack of interest in core games on Wii U and people are looking for excuses.

But what core games have been on Wii U that you can say wow this is new and come out on time which wasn't a sequel?

The biggest problem is that the core has left generations ago. The little core that is still around will not buy games that are late or lack features and they think its a kick in the guts.

This issue isn't exclusive to Wii U, its a problem that has been getting bigger and bigger since N64. Nintendo are the only ones that can fix it but whtever means necessary to do so.  

Their only hope is to ensure the kids they have today playing their games don't grow up and move on. They need to provide for these kids turning into adults. THis audicne will take time to grow and eventually more and more adults will remain on Nintendo systems.

For the old Nintendo fans. Most are gone for good. Some would come back sure but you can't bank on a quick fix when the next gen of kids is ready to play adult games and will move on if you don't feed them what they want.

This statement has no merit... back during the PS2 days millions of people bought Grand Theft Auto III without ever having even heard of (much less played) the first 2.  This past gen millions of people initially bought games like Call of Duty 4 , Fallout 3, Skyrim (Elder Scrolls V), etc, when they had never played a previous installment of these franchises.  By your logic, Sony and M$ gamers should've ignored these franchises because they never played them before.

Bottom line is this... gamers that game primarily on Sony or M$ consoles do not exclusively play 1st party titles, and are much more open to trying out new games / franchises than Nintendo gamers are... how many times each generation for example do we hear Nintendo fans clamor for the next Mario/Zelda/DK/Metroid/Starfox/Pokemon/Kirby/F-Zero etc?  It's almost as if these are the only games they care about... hmmm.

Meanwhile, the Wii U actually gets some halfway-decent 3rd party support initially, launching alongside servicable exclusives like ZombiU and Lego City while getting many of the big AAA franchises like AC and COD, along with enhanced ports of popular titles like Darksiders II and Arkham City... and Nintendo fans respond by completely ignoring these big 3rd party franchises because "they didn't play the other games in the series"?   What?!?