I think we might be overanalyzing a bit. I can see how it can be confusing. But the major fuel to the fire was Nintendo themselves acknowledging the DS/3DS situation and stating that they wouldn't repeat the same mistake. So, I have to have a little faith that since Nintendo themselves basically brought the first problem to my attention, that they're taking action in the marketing department to make things crystal clear by the time they're ready to advertise. They just don't appear to be from our perspective, but I know they'll be sensitive to it.
Like I said, hopefully they will change it up.
The situation is similar to the DS/3DS but different as well. Hopefully they will take the difference between both into consideration since focusing just on the similarities (i.e. the long running "Wii ____" name for accessories being similar to the names of the DS remakes being very alike), can make them lose sight of the things that are different that can cause confusion as well (i.e.: Showing off the tablet more than the system therefore making people think the Wii U is just the tablet).
They certainly want to keep the Wii name. The Wii worldwide sold more units than the GameCube and N64 combined... and you could almost include the SNES in that mix too. It was wildly successful for them, so they seem to want their portables to have DS-related names and for their hardware to be Wii branded from now on.
Yeah I definitely get why they stuck on to the Wii name. It's just that there should have at least been a difference in overall design in branding and/or logos in my opinion to show that the Wii U is new. The similar branding makes the Wii U seem like an addition to the same exact Wii branding that has been going on since 2006 therefore possibly causing people to think that it's part of the original Wii. Heck, even the Wii U game cases are identical to the Wii (but they just have the U at the top obviously).
Even though to be honest this thing is almost like the opposite of the Wii. Wii was about simplicity. Motion controls and a couple of buttons to convince your grandma that it wasn't too intimidating to try.
That's exactly what I said right after they showed it off at E3 2011.
Anyway no offense intended but this board isn't always the best barometer. I remember this board exploding about how stupid the Wii name and concept was. Nintendo is doomed! Then the 3DS reveal, everyone was pretty excited and the opposite of confused. As for the Wii U? Heck I dunno, it's hard to not predict problems when they could have just gone with WiiHD or Wii2. But if we generally thought "Wii" was a stupid name, then us thinking "Wii U" is stupid might actually mean it's brilliant somehow
While I thought that the Wii was a silly name, I made the connection with it to other silly names like Ebay and Google before Nintendo came out with their statement making comparisons to those brands.
Wii was a simple name to say, the name was waaay different from "Gamecube", and the style of branding was too. Therefore it was obvious that it was something completely different to consumers. The simplicity of the name "Wii" was shown in the games for the Wii as well since many games for it were simple to play (as you stated). It fit perfectly.
While I wasn't expecting the original Wii to be as big of a hit as it was, I definitely felt that it would do better than the Gamecube especially when people who weren't (and still aren't) big gamers were asking me about it.