The Wii U had great games but lets face it, it looked and felt like a Fisher-Price toy.

Wii U failed cause of the name. By the end of Wii everyone was over Wii.. Wii X or Y or Z didn't matter it had Wii in it. People just did not want to buy a Wii anything.

I know people will hate me for it but I preferred my Wii U over switch. Mainly because of the dual screen element for multiplayer games. Was just fun sitting around playing COD talking to a mate in the same room.

Switch does have the better games though, so can't complain too much lol.

Not sure if possible but would be col if you could have two switch in the room with one copy of the game ad both play multiplayer. That would bring back that Wii U feeling to a degree.

Its not just console exclusives, but also overall library.

You need both strong 3rd party multiplat AAA games + exclusive AAA games to sell a console.

Overall the Wii U had 768 games (if you count all regions and disreguard, that not all those where accessable everywhere).
Alot of those wherent very good games.

The Wii U had a few great games, but overall library really wasnt that strong.

^ this.
It had a games drought that basically ran for years.
Plus it was lacking in the 3rd party selection.

Marketing wasnt fantastic but not really horrible..... that wasnt why it failed.
People need to stop blameing marketing, and useing it as a excuse for the Wii U.
There where issues much more important than its marketing.

^ feel like people often forget this.

There where times where it was clearly lacking a new exciting "must have" game, and sometimes those droughts went on for far to long.
A console must have either insane 1st party support, or a mix of 1st + 3rd party to build up a library that draws people in.
Just havnt 3rd party isnt enough either, because then you ll go to the other platform that has that and 1st party too.

Nintendo is focusing more effort than ever into 1st party games, and again has a good concept for the hardware.
Plus its getting a small bit of 3rd party support for the switch too..... Switch is going to do great because of it.

Exclusives matter but they aren't all that matters. Its the overall library which sells consoles which while exclusives are a part of third party games should still be the majority of system's library else the systems will lack games since there is only so many games a publisher could bring by itself.

The Wii U didn't have a strong exclusive library either. It had one good year in 2014 and the rest of them were low tier in terms of the games it got. Just look at it.

2012: NSMBU, Nintendo Land we see they have one seller

2013: Pikmin 3, Super Mario 3D World they have just one seller through the year

2014: Donkey Kong Country, Mario Kart 8, Bayonetta 2 they have three systems seller

2015: Spatoon

2016: Star Fox Zero really

The Wii U did not have good exclusives in enough quantity and variety. I don't know where this thought of it being an exclusive powerhouse comes from and why people think it could have sold well when it has less good exclusives than the Xbox One, while games look worse on it and it doesn't have most third party games.

Star Fox Zero was such a dud, that it shouldnt even be up there.
Neither should Nintendo Land. These arnt system sellers, or games that drew in people.

Wii wasn't portable also.

Ka-pi96 said:  Because they need to actually be good exclusives. The amount of exclusives worth playing on the Wii U... I can count on a single finger!

Eh, NSMBU, Pikmin 3, Lego City Undercover, SM3DW, MK8, DKTF, Bayonetta 2, Smash Bros 4, Splatoon, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Super Mario Maker, Yoshi's Woolly World, Shin Megami Tensei..

The problem was that the first actual system seller, Super Mario 3D World, didn't show up until a whole year after the system was launched, and came out just in time to be utterly overshadowed by the launches of the PS4 and Xbox One. Really, the fact that 3D World was outsold by Knack, even if only for a few weeks, should indicate how badly wrong Nintendo got it.

The name and marketing didn't help, but they didn't have to be insurmountable problems - the 3DS had those issues for its first six months, but managed to get its own system sellers (Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7) out in good enough time to let the system hit its stride before the PS Vita even launched. Which makes it all the more baffling why Nintendo didn't just make the same mistakes from the 3DS launch, but made them a thousand times worse.

We had plenty of similar threads on matter why Wii U failed, biggest reasons why Wii U failed are (order from one with biggest effect):

-Terrible branding/naming and marketing. I mean that was disaster, people massively thought that Wii U was some kind of addon for Wii console for which no one care about any more in that ime, even some retailers confused them.
-No big system seller game for hole year. We talking about Nintendo platform here, and Nintendo platform need big/system seller game for launch and in its 1st year, Wii and Switch are great examples of that.
-Software droughts. Wii U had months after launch without single one release.
-Unappealing concept and high price point. No one realy carred about Wii U gamepad and in some time gamepad rise cost of Wii U, in same time you had PS3/360 for around $200 while Wii U was $100-150 more price and did not offer anything better.
-Timing. Telasing home console only one year before PS4/XB1 launch was not best decision, only few months after Wii U launch hole market start talking about PS4/XB1 while Wii U was quickly forgotten that even exists.

Because youtubers are clueless

Miyamotoo said: Kerotan said: The Wii U wasn't portable. That's why. Wii wasn't portable also.   Ka-pi96 said:  Because they need to actually be good exclusives. The amount of exclusives worth playing on the Wii U... I can count on a single finger! Eh, NSMBU, Pikmin 3, Lego City Undercover, SM3DW, MK8, DKTF, Bayonetta 2, Smash Bros 4, Splatoon, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Super Mario Maker, Yoshi's Woolly World, Shin Megami Tensei..

That went viral thanks to the motion control phenom.