At launch the console had quite a few 3rd party titles or games from third party exclusive for WiiU. Unfortunately the WiiU released late (late November) to the point the games were out for a while by that time or came out late in general. Which caused low sales and ended up being the last to be seen from some of the third parties.

AAA Games at launch Include:

Assassin's Creed III 

Batman: Arkham City (Armored Edition)

Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Darksiders II

Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Powe of Two

Mass Effect 3

Madden NFL 2013

NBA 2K13

Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge

Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition

along with games like 

Skylanders Giants

Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed

Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper

ZombiU

Scribblenauts Unlimited

etc...etc...

So the console didn't lack third party titles at launch. It just wasn't sustained.

tablet controller was a terrible concept with poor execution. There were times I thought, man, the 2nd screen could be used in some interesting way, but it never was... I wanna say Madden was one of the few games that did what I wanted it too (picking plays on 2nd screen was nice, especially in 2p non online.
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The name did sound like a mid gen upgrade or add-on. Yet they didn't have that problem with the nes and snes.
For marketing, I guess Nintendo got lazy after all the viral marketing the Wii got. It sells itself! Maybe not.

It was half baked. TV features arrived late and disappeared again. If it had intergrated with my pvr it would have had a lot more use.
BC couldn't work with the pad alone, yoou still need the wii motes for an akward way to play games.
Pad wasn't used a lot for games, so you just had an akward controller with 2-3 hour battery life.

The pad is good for the browser, you tube and netflix. Plus a WiiU is still cheaper than an iPad and plays real games :) Yet that stupidly small range hurt it a lot. I have to move the console around everytime I want to use the gamepad away from the tv, not very practical.

uninteresting gimmick, the tablet was tied down to a brick.
Lack of software
bad marketing and bad name
to expensive

Poorest implementation of its unique features by a Nintendo console since the Virtual Boy if not just ever. The tablet controller had its uses but Nintendo themselves never really took advantage of it in most games and other developers just didn't care either after the initial run of attempts. Part of it might have been the cost but if that was going to be such a debilitating factor the tablet controller as the main feature should have just been scrapped.

Horrible overall branding and targeting of the audience. The fact that the Wii U looks exactly like a more rounder version of the Wii redesign is a bad enough sin. As overall reliance on the Wii brand despite the fact that their repeated usage of peripherals and shallow experiences ultimately drove away a good deal of the casual audience they brought in and traditional gamers left the Wii brand in rough shape by the time the Wii U even dropped outside of a few key areas (mainly the Just Dance and family friendly budget games). The fact that the Wii U's central function with the tablet and overall design philosophy was try to target the more traditional gamer while appealing to casuals that played the Wii left both audience groups confused and uninterested unless they were hardcore Nintendo fans and even a number of them stayed away. With the right push the Wii U could have found a decent enough groove despite being the weaker system but it wasn't given a chance with how badly Nintendo positioned it trying to have the casual audience cake they generated and let dwindle on the Wii while eating the traditional video game player soup that they paid lip service to while chasing casual cake.

Not going all out on technology, the Wii U has potential to much better then we have seen graphically, so let me just clear it up that I am not talking about its graphic capabilities. Which admittedly could be better and closer to its competition. The issues in technology I am talking about are some of the other features. The idea of a 8 GB hard drive storage being a baseline option, the overall performance of the UI at launch, the limited distance between main unit and Gamepad before connection issues and frankly how pathetic the online services were compared to its competition are things that hurt the system.


In plain the Wii U while a very good system and had some great games but it was a cluster of good ideas poorly implemented together. The Switch seems to have learned from its issues but despite the great start as the Wii showed Nintendo can still drop the ball before actually crossing the goal line.

Wii U was weaker than 360 and PS3 and costed $350 at launch, with a single price drop at $300. Unless they got rid of the gamepad and cut price to under $200 it was never going to work.

Pretty suee the Wii U was more powerful than both the Xbox 360 and PS3. Where did you hear that it's weaker?

I loved my Wii U and offscreen play was the biggest factor. That extended over to the Switch.

I do miss the second screen for some experiences, however. My Wii U still sees almost as much playtime as my PS4, despite the Switch being one of my mains.

I've honestly been playing a lot of Gameboy on my Gamecube since I got the Gameboy Interface loaded onto my SD Media launcher. So much better scaling than the official disc that came with the Gameboy player. Those giant GB pixels look crisp, even at 120".

I still talk to people who say they skipped a Wii U because, despite having a tablet, it was "still a Wii". 

I don't even correct them at this point. The damage has LONG been done. 

Another mistake for the Wii U was that the actual console looked waaaaay too much like the Wii, which reinforced the misconception that the Wii U was an add-on gamepad.  Hell, that might have been a reason why the 3DS didn't sell as well as the DS; maybe people just got confused with the name and the fact that the physical 3DS handheld itself looked like a late gen DS remodel with a 3D add-on gimmick.