The announcement of the Pikmin port made me realize some things.

First of all, that WiiU was a financial failure, but now Nintendo is making up for this loss with remasters that go down in the millions - so the cost of producing WiiU games has already paid off many times.

Second, the WiiU could live longer and enjoy better sales if it got more remasters from the Wii and Gamecube to fill the publishing gaps. Zelda remasters seem to have come out, but it was not enough. The Metroid Prime HD trilogy released for the premiere could convince some players. Likewise, Super Mario Sunshine HD and a few other titles to patch holes in the release plan. Especially if they got new content in the bonus. Of course, the Switch also gained focus on one console. During the WiiU era, Nintendo also had to support 3DS.

Third, least obvious, the Switch's success was largely built on the failure of the WiiU. Thanks to these remasters, Nintendo has nicely enriched its publishing plan. The defeat of the WiiU led to the launch of the consoles, Zelda and Mario Kart 8, which have been selling well to date. These two games continue to drive console sales. If WiiU did not pass such a fail and sold, say, at the N64 level, it would probably live a year longer, and Swich might not have so many ports (Zelda would then be released in 2016). Thus, paradoxically, the severe defeat of the WiiU made Nintendo earn more than if the sales were not so bad.

Fourth, that the next Nintendo console won't be that easy. Unless Nintendo starts releasing Switch remasters ;)

What do you think about it?

I can only say that getting a switch without owning a wii u was awesome.

All the wii u ports are virtually new games to me, so for a while the switch was just packed.

WiiU has failed in many ways. The most important of them:
- bad marketing
- no strong exclusive title on start
- too much gaps in the release schedule
- too little third party support
- poor power to price

Good remasters would definitely help to fill the holes in the publishing window. Remember that one of the biggest premieres on the WiiU in the first year of life was Wind Waker HD. A few more such games and maybe the situation would not look so tragic and others would not start to withdraw from cooperation.

But you are probably right that we will see a lot of remasters on the Switch successor - in one form or another. Anyway, the music and film industry also often use old hits, because it significantly increases the guarantee of success.

Wii U power while weak was less of an issue than what was powering it. An ancient CPU from 2000. A GPU from 2007. Nintendo's own shit API from Gamecube and Wii. Switch while more powerful sure but more important was more modern chipsets and more modern features. There is no universe where Wii U succeeds. Even if you have better marketing. The name and hardware are an issue. The other issue is, it's a halfway there idea. It had two ideas and was bad at both. A console version of the DS idea. It was an idea 8 years old and 3DS just released the year before. The other was the promise of play games in a tablet...if only 20 feet away at most.

Switch benefited from Wii U ports as it was not BC. Wii U played every Wii game. Would you really pay $50 for a shat out HD port when your console already plays the Wii version and you have it still? The switch helps get away with it that for every Wii U port there are a dozen combined new first and third-party games worth picking up. Also, remakes/remasters are just a trend with games and films. They would have ported stuff anyway. I think it slowly started in the 16-bit era with Super Mario All-Stars/ Ninja Gaiden Trilogy/  Mega Man Wily Wars and so forth. PS1 got a number of SNES ports. Saturn launched with ports of Genesis games. PS2 era we got ports of PS1 games. Capcom charged $40 for each port of RE on Gamecube(note not talking about the remakes). They were $5 on PS1 in a Gamestop lol. Last gen it exploded and never stopped. So that was going to happen anyway.

If there's any console to draw from when it comes to remasters, it's the Wii U - a console very few people had. Not to mention, it's nice not to deal with the convoluted setup and interface for Switch with those games. 

Even myself, a pretty big Nintendo fan, only ever had a handful of Wii U games, so many of the remasters (like Hyrule Warriors and Captain Toad) are new to me. And even a lot of the games I had like Pikmin 3 and Rayman Legends, I never got too far in anyway. 

Now though, between the ease in filling out the library with recycled games and the combined efforts from the handheld dev teams, Nintendo really needs to start cranking out a slew of brand new games starting next year, if not holiday season of this year. Covid or no, there's little excuse at this point for the relative drought in big 1st party offerings in the past year, year and a half. Really Clubhouse Games, Animal Crossing, and Paper Mario are the only ones of note for me this year. 

This year will be pretty weak when it comes to Switch games. But the next one should be as good as 2017. Nintendo will want to fight off the next gen attack. It is also possible that they are preparing strong titles for the premiere of Switch Pro/+. Anyway I think you can expect a lot from Nintendo in 2021 - Bayonetta 3, Metroid Prime 4, SMT5, BotW sequel, new game with Mario, maybe Splatoon 3...

Switch did get a lot of extra new games because the Wii U flopped. Mario Kart 8 is currently their top seller and most Switch owners never got to play it on the Wii U. Splatoon 2 and Mario Maker 2 feel like iterations on the same game, but since they started on the Wii U they are also new to most people.

I don't think "Switch 2" will benefit nearly as much from Switch ports, but I do think it would be a good idea for them to port and remaster even older games. I am ready, willing and waiting for the first 3 Zelda games to get the Link's Awakening treatment. And of course they could actually remaster Mother 3 and release it worldwide. They have a hell of a backlog of potential ports that go back further than the Switch and Wii U.

I think part of the reason these ports are selling well on Switch is specifically because the Wii U flopped, and because of that not a lot of people played those games. People already had the Wii games, so I don't think it would have made a huge difference.

Therefore, on the WiiU, the Gamecube ports would be the best solution. Wind Waker HD was well received (btw should also come out on Switch).

Switch 2 will definitely have a harder time. Nintendo will still be able to successfully release remasters and remakes, but they will no longer be such a driving force for console sales. Which does not change the fact that such BotW 4K would sell great anyway.

The benefits of Wii U ports right now should flow on to the next Switch. They're not only giving these games/franchises that were buried on a dead console more exposure (increasing awareness for future games), it allows them to easily pace out any big games in the works, giving the Switch a longer potential life and more time to plan/prepare for it's successor.

Whenever Switch 2 does come around, they should have a more than comfortable system for how they can schedule big releases to meet demand, along with how many ports/remakes they'll want in-between (obviously less than they're currently getting away with).

Right now, too many people are somehow interpreting Nintendo's silence to mean lack of production from their studios. I'm confident once E3 2021 comes around, assuming the world is back to normal and they do a big E3 Direct, those concerns can finally be put to bed.