You sure if the WIi U, sold with a nunchuck (instead of gamepad) and was like 50$ or more cheaper all generation, it wouldnt have higher sales than the current Wii U with gamepad?

The name probably doesnt play a huge role, but it probably doesnt help any either.... might hurt sales a tiny bit at most.

"1) Nintendo thought people would buy it due to the Wii in the name even though there were no games."

Mario to me is Nintendo....

SMW3D dissapointed me, I wanted a galaxy 3 game... so I kinda agree with this statement.

"Also, they didn't really start pulling out their big guns till Mario Kart 8 in 2014, which should have been a launch title."

Yes it should have. Alot more people would have jumped on the hype and bandwagon early on.

A series of bad marketing choices, followed by a set of games that weren't quite what people wanted. Many people see Mario 3D World as not a real 3D Mario, and that's stopped many people from diving in. 8th Gen Nintendo is a series of absurd decisions...

Nintendo's stuck in a vicious cycle in which publishers just don't find it worth it to develop and market WiiU titles. The publishers know that almost nothing they've tried to make WiiU versions of games stand out have either caught on to either the 'Nintendo' gamer or the rest of the gaming population in general. It makes the platform inherently risky - so they stick to what they know has consistently worked within the PS/Xbox brand.

Creating WiiU versions of games isn't hard -- it just takes time and focus away from versions that will make up 90-98% of your revenue anyway.

Seeing as Nintendo makes peanuts on 3rd party licensing, and makes nearly all its money on 1st party games, console sales, accessories, and amiibo now, Nintendo should slash their licensing/royalties. If publishers know they'll make 50% more on a unit sold of a WiiU version of a game vs unit of a PS/Xbox version of a game, maybe they'll be give the Nintendo platform another serious look and actually promote and properly support their presence.

And its had little effect, people are fundementally uninterested in the what Nintendo is offering.

Games are certainly an issue but again that then correlates with the power and third party support. PS4/X1 didn't come out guns blazing with exclusives either yet they're sales paint a very different story. The issue you're discussing is essentially the golf between the Wii U and the gamecube, at the end of the day though if they fix the problems you suggest you're still left with a Mario box that appeals only to Nintendo's core of 20-25m audience.

We've seen this thread a million times but basically two reasons imo:

1. not enough COD/FIFA/Madden/GTA. Basically shooters and sports.

2. online is still lacking. No party system is disappointing. Miiverse is cool but I miss parties from my Xbox 360 days.

I see three reasons:

Bad branding - the name confuses people, Nintendo should have gave it a different name and forget the Wii brand
Bad marketing - Nintendo spent almost nothing on advertsiment. Many people still don´t know that a WiiU is
Bad release schedule - While I do understand that they tried to get the best from the holiday season, the console stood too many time without new games. They should have released it on early 2013 and pace the launch of the games

On the N64 and Gamecube you had great AAA adult games that could be enjoyed by grown up gamers. And the hardware was up to date, N64 CPU and GPU were superior to PS1, Gamecube was faster than PS2.

Wii-U is one generation behind and cannot compete with PS4 at all. But the biggest problem is the useless tablet controller, even bigger than the fact that Nintendo is completely anti-consumer with region lock and very limited online communication between players. And then there is the lack of variety in games and the lack of 3rd party support. And did I mention that the console is heavily overprized for the limited power and small amount of available games provided by the system?

I am a die hard Nintendo fan but I do not own a Wii-U because the system and the games are not apealing to me (at least not until Xenoblade is out in the west.) I still hope for price cut and if a tablet-less version would be announced at E3, I would immediately buy it. And where is the real 3D Mario game that everyone is waiting for?

they used the hardware from 7th gen. if they had 8th gen hardware then the Wii U would destroy the competition

With they Wii they had a specific goal, they looked at the market and decided they wanted to retain their userbase while expanding the gaming market. The Wii was specifically designed for that goal.
With the WiiU they just made a (not so) original concept and tried to find a market for it since then.

And what you believe? That people go for these consoles for variety of games? That people are killing each other to have a ps4 to play persona? star ocean? indie games? and x1? ori? sunset?

I don't know if you know but there are a lot of people outside these forums that don't give a shit for these games that we praise on videogame websites, they just look the case and say "cool" and add to their cods and fifas collection. If you don't believe in what i say, then we must live in different worlds