if you were the head of the next gen Wii in 2008, what decisions would you have made? 

Here are mine (note: looks like a lot but I've been slowly working on this for like a week lol). Basically my goal would be to do the complete opposite of what Nintendo actually is doing.

Name and marketing

"Wii U" is a dumb name, but we'd likely be stuck with the Wii brand for a bit so I guess Super Wii would be it.

And the marketing would be priority. It's unlikely to capture the Wii phenomenon ("Wii would like to play"), but at least try to get a clever marketing campaign going on. And get it going on everywhere. Movies, Super Bowl, TV shows, internet.

Hardware

• 45 nm process
• 1 billion transistors
• POWER7 SCM, 4 active cores
• 3GHz frequency per core
• 256KB L2 cache per core
• 2.6 MB of FLR-L3 cache per core
• 16MB of PSRAM

• 28nm process
• GNC Architecture
• Engine frequency: 825Mhz
• Memory frequency: 795 MHz
• 1GB GDDR5 memory

Memory: 4GB DDRL3 LRDIMM main memory at 800Mhz

Storage: One 250GB 2.5" SATA 6 7,200rpm hard drive

Slot loading 12cm propietary optical disc (25GB per layer, up to four layers)

Other:

• SD memory card slot (supports SDHC cards)
• USB 3.0 ports (2 at front of console, 2 at rear)
• Sensor Bar power port
• AV multi out port
• HDMI 1.4 out port
• Ethernet port

• 48GHz 24-bit audio
• 64 bit audio processing
• AAC
• LPCM
• Dolby Digital 5.1
• Dolby TrueHD
• 22.2 surround sound

Retail: $349.99

This hardware is cheap to make (only cost around $370), but can reduce price real fast (for price cuts, the Wii U can't cut its price as easily because of the expensive gamepad), but most importantly can at least be near the PS4/One in terms of power. Nintendo was kind of insulting charging $349 in 2012 for 2006 hardware!

Controller

The GameCube controller is considered to be many to be the most comfortable controllers ever made, so pretty much use that as a basis but update it to today's standards. Something like this:

But with more accurate analog sticks, and better triggers.

For the gimmick, I'd focus on virtual reality. In fact, before they revealed the Wii U this is the direction I thought they'd be going. It was actually rumored for the Revolution (as Nintendo On). It'd be awesome for games like Metroid and Endless Ocean!

First/second party software

To get games out on time I'd actually train the staff on HD (Nintendo was actually unprepared for HD programming in 2012!) and get bigger teams to avoid annoying delays.

2012 line up: New Super Mario Bros. + Mario Maker (have it ready at launch), Pikmin 3 (was a launch title but Nintendo's HD programming woes came into play here), a much better version of Sing Party (like with a dance element or something - appeal to non-gamers I guess), Ocarina of Time remaster and a new IP - something like Project HAMMER 

2013 line up:

• Super Mario 64 2 (a full fledged sequel to Super Mario 64 in HD, not 3D World, that is what people want)
• Wii Fit U (start promoting the "quality of life" titles, make this to where it competes with FitBit and all that, market it great)
• Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze
• Smash Bros. (get it out ASAP with full online features)
• New IP, probably revive Sadness 
• New western IP to rival Uncharted/Last of Us
• New Retro Studios IP. They have the potential to be the next Rare and Nintendo is not utilizing them right. I'd have them make either a WRPG (like Raven Blade) or a new first person shooter franchise to diversify the library - have them make the "Halo" or "Goldeneye" for the Super Wii
• Wii series games (Wii Sports 3, Wii Party, new game)
• Majora's Mask remaster

I would have made it x86 that is a bit less powerful than the x1 but similar overall specs and then launched it with Zelda or MK8. The price would be $300 as well at launch and I would have also put the Pro controller instead of the gamepad and also would have made the triggers pressure sensitive! But I would have offered the gamepad as an optional accessory

Oh and I still would have kept the wii BC cause I am sure the jump from the wii to the x1 in terms of power would make it so that with proper coding, the console could probably bruteforce the emulation

Console Name: Nintendo Phoenix 

Zelda Phoenix a launch title. Wii U Fixed.

I would've done it better.

What are some things you would have done (doesn't have to be as detailed as mine lol mine was more for fun).

I would definitely change the name. Not sure if I would use the Wii name, but it seems safe to have Wii in there somewhere. I`d hate to do it, but the gamepad seems more trouble than it`s worth, so I would reluctantly drop it. I`d have it match the power of the PS4 or be close to it, and market it a lot better. : /

Sounds like you ended up making the X Box One... but dropped the Wii thing entirely lol

Yeah, I guess I did, minus all the other weird features it has or once had. : P

I really like that controller :P They should have used that instead of the gamepad and made it more powerful or matched the power of the ps4 1 release title I would have had would be Pokemon XD 2

Rather than designing everything from the ground-up, here's what I would do if tasked to fix the Wii U at the ast minute:

-Cut the GamePad. Give the Pro Controller a speaker and microphone.
-Make the OS use half the system resources it uses now.

Why would I do these things? Nintendo works best when there systems use a low cost model. Easy ways to achieve this are to use a simple and conventional controller, and an efficient OS. The OS on the Wii U uses far more resources than it should, given the console's overall power. Reducing its requirements would allocate more resources to games, which would make them look better, and easier to make, which would have improved third party support. We have seen now that Nintendo is willing to push the hell out of their hardware, while third parties are not. So the solution is to have Nintendo push the hell out of the OS. They can keep hardware costs low, and make the system still attractive to third parties.