It's quite clear that the Wii U was, in commercial terms, a big mistake for Nintendo, by far their worst selling console to date.

So, a question; what should they have done instead from 2012-2016?

They should have instead, renamed it to anything but the (Wii) U. Might not have done that much better, but at least people wouldn't have thought it was just an accessory to the Wii.

I'm with mZuzek on this one.

Exactly what they did. The only thing they should have changed was the name, call it Wii 2, or anything else. It wouldn't have done much to help sales, but anything would've been better than 'Wii U'... Though, now that I think about it, I don't even think I'd have changed that.


There's an old saying: Sometimes, you need to fall flat on your ass so you can get back up, learn, and do better. Basically, first you need to fail in order to succeed.
If Nintendo had been successful with the Wii U or whatever console they had from 2012-2016, they may not have seen the need for the Switch and we never would have gotten it. They'd probably still be making one handheld and one console, splitting their resources between two systems. We'd have a successor to the 3DS out already, with the Wii U's successor coming out this or next holiday season. They needed a Wii U disaster in order for them to see their mistakes, rethink their strategy, and take advantage of their unique strengths, and that's what has led to the Switch.

The Wii U as a system was fine. It's name, marketing and games are what killed it.

People thought it was a Wii add-on, it had no big exclusives at all (SM3DW and MK8 are as close as it gets - but I'd argue they were both marketed extremely poorly to the point of being irrelevant), and Nintendo's insistence on family focused marketing killed it. Nobody wanted to touch the damn thing past it's first anniversary.

I wouldn't change anything that happened, as the Switch is fantastic thanks to lessons learnt during the Wii U's life, but it could have been so much smoother if they'd changed their strategy from the start. (The Wii U unveil is the only time I've ever seen a new Nintendo console and thought "Wow... that looks shit.")

Naming it the super nintendo wii or wii 2. The controller should be like the joycons but with a proper dpad, analogues like the nunchck and infra red. Use the money saved on controllers over the wii u game pad to increase the system's specs (better gpu, cpu and 4-6gb of ram) for the same $350 price tag. Regarding software development, they should have prepared for making games in HD a lot sooner AND made sure to have a several huge games for the first year.

In a scenario where The wii u released with mario 3d world, followed by MK8 in spring 2013, GTAV in september and smash in november 2013, things would have gone a lot different last generation. About GTAV, this one had no excuse to skip the original wii u. It's on the list to illustrate how much of a difference it would have made, not because it required better specs or action from nintendo.

Wii U with no gamepad, and launch it 1 or 2 years sooner.
Sell the gamepad separatelly latter(about the actual wii U launch), along with the launch of zumbi U, nintendo land and etc.

Pros:
-No change in hardware architecture from the initially planned.
-solve the main wii U problem: the need to use the gamepad. That hurted getting games, developers said that port to wii U was as easy as porting to x360, but they dindnt know what to do with the gamepad. Some games was developed with this gimmick in mind. And even games that didnt used the gamepad was critisized by specialized media. (man, every game could be made without gamepad, from splatoon from mario maker, zumbi U, etc, had versions for consoles that didnt have the wii U gamepad)
-No confusion of being an accessory of wii, it is just the wii successor.
-Get Wii Late games as crossgen titles. Maybe HD versions of Zelda SS, Xenoblade, DKCR, MP9...
-Probably more third party games, because started early and the gamepad point.
-Use the market of wiimote+ to help to sell the console, the real experience with motion control (that they didnt deliver on wii).
-Get the last breath of wii sales potential.

the Wii U was a necessary evil. It served as the basis for what would eventually be the Switch. The Gamepad gave Nintendo the idea to make a hybrid console, and its poor specs meant the Switch could still be their most powerful console ever despite limitations.

It would've been too early for the hybrid concept in 2012, as Tegra X1 was still several years out.
Either give the Wii U a better name and better marketing, or just make a normal console. Nintendo's 8th Gen console didn't need to be as powerful as the base Xbox One, but make it much more capable than the Wii U ended up being. Even with Wii backwards compatibility, don't have a GamePad for new games. And with this console doing better, Switch can be put off until at least 2018. This also means the Switch will have to have higher specs, as the Wii U replacement in this case would have higher specs than the Wii U.

I wouldnt change a thing other than the name and maybe some more grunt power. Wii U made COD interesting to play local multiplayer lol.

I've said many times before and I will say it again.

The biggest mistake made with Wii U was moving away from Wiimotes. It should have been a console with a Wiimote for $249. That would have sold significantly better than the Wii U did. The tablet control should have existed only as an accessory.

However, its arguably best things happen the way they did. I like that Nintendo is now focusing on a single platform. Ideas from Wii U and software simply moved over to Switch. As a consumer I like Nintendo just focusing on a mobile device.