Many gamers and basically every casual, didn't even knto Wii U existed or thought the controller was for the Wii. I've seen gamers thinking this first hand, one even argued with me that it was just a controller and not a new system when it was out lol. If Nintendo had named this a good name it would have sold at least 30 million more, hands down. Names are the most important thing for any device, and Nintendo picked about the least clear and most confusing name possible for a consumer.

This.  Nintendo suffered a lot of bad word of mouth throughout the Wii U's lifetime as well.  I used to frequent the numerous Gamestops in my area during the 8th gen.  I remember more than once overhearing Gamestop employees actively talking customers out of buying a Wii U.  I also remember visiting my nephew while on vacation and mentioning the Wii U to him.  His exact response was, "I heard the Wii U had like...  Atari graphics."  Which let me know that the Sony campaign, plagiarized from Sega's playbook, still had deep-lasting roots on the playgrounds of the day.  But, I had brought my Wii U on the trip, and when I showed it to him and played the games with him, he had a blast with it.  But, it's not something he would have ever asked for without that hands on experience.  So, it doesn't matter at which point a Nintendo system launches in it's predecessor's lifetime if it has that much negative word of mouth going against it.  And to make matters worse, the Wii U never had a good marketing campaign from Nintendo to establish its identity in the public consciousness.  I don't know how they went from the brilliant "Wii would like to play" campaign of the 7th gen, to having to still try to explain what the Wii U was over a year after its release.  Unless that was always the blueprint just to get from Wii to Switch, but needing something to be on the shelf to bridge the gap until the Switch itself was ready for launch. 

Anyway, as long as Nintendo provides a device that speaks for itself, like they did with the Switch, they won't have to worry about "fickle" consumers.  The hybrid space isn't going to go away.

100% THIS! My friend worked at Best Buy at the time and when they started getting Wii U shipments in, nobody knew what it was. Some thought it was an expansion similar to the Sega CD or 32X and others thought it was just a Wii packaged differently. And what made everyone even more confused was the cost of the Wii U at launch. Nintendo's marketing and promo videos did nothing to clear this up either.

I didn't even know what it was lol. I had to research it to see that it was actually Nintendo's next gen console. I did eventually get a Wii U in in 2013 for Zelda Wind Waker HD and I freaking LOVED IT! Still do. It really was a much better Wii in every way imaginable. If Nintendo marketed the Wii U properly (and with a better name) it would've been a successful console. Not Switch levels of success, but still successful. 

Hopefully this is the start of a recovery from the recent low point in supply since the sooner the PS5 catches up from being down a third the better. I'm also interested in seeing how high the Xbox Series X|S goes with better supply.

The Platform Totals page is wrong; the Wii U only ever shipped 13.56 million according to Nintendo themselves.

Fair enough, I hope I didn't come across as rubbishing the site, I do appreciate the effort you and the other staff put in. :)

That's very surprising to me. I thought it would be the other way around.

Anyway, I finally got the Xbox Series X during last week's restock of the console. Enjoying it a lot so far!

Na, they're building server blades for their gamepass equilvlent using ps5 chips which is why there is a shortage for the quarter. I'm sure of it.

Now that is an interesting theory!

I actually believe they are doing something like that but I do not think this would have any impact on the Play Station Five shortage in general. 
They really need very little chips at the end.

But I like the idea and I'm really waiting for them to announce whatever Spartacus is and I still have my hopes up for Play Station 3 emulation on Play Station Five.

OP:

People really underestimated the Series S. Nobody could have predicted  the shortage obviously; but Microsoft plan was to have a low cost /high production rate console. And while it would probably not have payed off that much without COVID. The timing was perfect.

Like Dulfite said, I think people are going to be very surprised whenever the shortage ends and see how things are going to probably stay like that.
The Series S is also helping Microsoft GamePass plan and some big games are going to come out at the same time probably. 

Microsoft is back into the game for good.